


Bad At What We Do

by spelling_error



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - BDSM, BAMF Tony Stark, Boot Worship, Breathplay, Bucky Barnes Gets a Hug, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Coming In Pants, Dom Tony Stark, Dom/sub, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, M/M, Shoe Kink, Sort of? - Freeform, Sub Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:36:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25872226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spelling_error/pseuds/spelling_error
Summary: Tony Stark was a Submissive. That’s what the test results showed when he was tested at sixteen like everyone else. He wasn’t a very good one though. Arguably he was the worst one.Tony Stark was a submissive who had never been able to submit.James Barnes was a Dominant. That’s what the test results showed both before and after Hydra. It’s what Steve Rogers told him. He wasn’t a very good one though. He felt like the worst.James Barnes was a Dominant who was no longer able to dominate.There had always only been Dominants and Submissives, though. One or the other. Not both, not neither.But then there was Tony Stark and James Barnes.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark
Comments: 69
Kudos: 272





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For anyone waiting on my other Winteriron fic, "I Wanna B Urs", know that the final chapter is coming soon, but that I ran out of booze and it's not the kind of thing you write sober.
> 
> This is though!

Tony Stark was a Submissive. That’s what the test results showed when he was tested at sixteen like everyone else.

He wasn’t a very good one though.

Arguably he was the worst one.

Tony Stark was a submissive who had never been able to submit.

Not even when he tried, and most certainly not when he was forced.

James Barnes was a Dominant. That’s what the test results showed both before and after Hydra. It’s what Steve Rogers told him.

He wasn’t a very good one though.

He felt like the worst.

James Barnes was a Dominant who was no longer able to dominate.

Not since Hydra.

None of this really mattered though, in the grand scheme of things.

Tony never experienced withdrawal or subdrop, and had no problem telling Doms where to shove their commands and their cocks, which was no where near him, thank you very much. It baffled doctors and scientists, but most just chalked it up to him being stubborn. _Not having found the right Dom yet_.

James no longer had to deal with Steve trying to pressure him to be more dominant and less docile after the regrettable night he agreed to take a Sub for the first time since he fell from the train. After mutual panic attacks and tears, and honestly James isn’t sure which one of them was worse off, him or the paid Sub, Steve had dialed it back. They all decided to chalk it up to trauma.

At least, they had.

Then, they were just sort of _forced_ to re-evaluate everything they had all ever known.

Because there had always only been Dominants and Submissives. One or the other. Not both, not neither.

But then there was Tony Stark and James Barnes.

***************

The timing of the kidnapping was what made it so embarrassing, really.

Tony had finally, finally, backed Rogers and his lot into a corner so tightly that even that stubborn, bullheaded asshole had no choice left but the sign the Accords. They’d been back at the Compound a month, snuggly living life under Tony’s thumb and the eyes of the new Avengers and everything was _lovely_.

Then Tony got kidnapped by a loose handful of complete and utter idiots. It was shameful that Tony let them get the drop on him.

The Avengers had never been stronger, Captain America and the other fugitive vigilantes now part of the team again making it was _the worst_ possible time to stage a kidnapping of another hero.

Worst still, to succeed and know nothing about what they’re doing.

The suit was five minutes out when they decided a _live_ ransom video was the best choice of action.

It was known fact the Tony Stark was biologically a Sub, and it was also known fact that Tony has never submitted for anyone, ever. He’s been kidnapped more times than he count, and he’s quite positive that these knock off AIM goons aren’t going to be the ones that unlock the secret to Tony Starks submission.

It won’t be for lack of trying though, it seemed.

“You know, I could just tell them where I am,” Tony drawled, spitting blood onto the cement floor, “That’s why you don’t do these live,” he advised.

“We’ll kill you,” One goon said from behind his ski mask, sounding unsure.

“Right, ‘cause where’s the fun it that?” Tony grinned with blood stained teeth.

James watched with a blank expression and a horrible churning in his gut as the screen showed live footage of Iron Man being beaten bloody.

“We need to move out now,” Steve was demanding.

Captain Danvers rolled her eyes, “Relax, Rogers,” she said, “It’s Tony, he’ll be fine,” she says.

On the screen, the voice of one of the many AIM soldiers seethed in a dark tone, one that James was familiar with. One that made him want to obey, even though it wasn’t supposed to work that way.

“I am in charge here. You _will_ listen to _me_ ,” the man growled.

“What the fuck else have I been doing? You haven’t stopped talking!” Stark replied with a scoff, “I mean, it’s just sort of white noise at this point but yeah, you got it, I hear you,” he said dismissively.

It made James very confused when Steve said, “We have to go, Tony is a Sub, they could take advantage of that,” like Steve wasn’t watching the same video feed they all were.

On the screen, Stark was laughing. James felt it was fitting.

Danvers motioned to the screen where the Dom in the mask was telling Stark to _Stop fucking laughing, damn it_ and periodically slapping him in the face. Both of which made him wheeze and chuckle harder.

There wasn’t much any of them could or needed to do. Stark’s suit was closer than any of them, and Rhodes was already on route with medical assistance. There was no need for them to suit up and rush out, get keyed up with adrenaline only to turn around and come back when they arrived at a finished fight.

James understood the desire to get out and fight something though. Steve and the others have yet to be given an assignment since they arrived, and it was likely Stark who was cockblocking them. Though it seemed he had sufficient help when Danvers denied the need to send a full team.

It may also have to do with Steve’s hero complex. His regret for the way things turned out with Stark, all the fighting and the tension for nothing when he eventually gave in and signed the papers anyway. James figured Steve really just wanted to be the one who swooped in and saved Stark from the bad guys in hopes of making it up to the other man.

“No healthy Sub is going to break down for theses idiots,” Danvers says.

Still, James was getting weary of Danvers decision when the video feed began to escalate.

So much so, that Parker and Williams were made to leave the room.

“I’ve dealt with brattier Subs than you, bitch,” the Dom said lowly.

Even in the low video quality James could see Stark roll his eyes, “I highly, highly doubt that,” he replied.

It seemed stupid, to untie Stark from the chair even if they left his arms bound in front of him, but the icy command made James feel sick even through the tiny video voice so maybe it was enough. “Get on your knees,” the Dom demanded.

A healthy Sub would be able to resist that, yes. For how long though, they weren’t sure.

“Really? How original,” Stark said sarcastically.

The Dom just grabbed him by the hair and forced him to the ground. Stark didn’t look angry, so much as bored and impatient.

James tensed, they all tensed, when the Dom’s hands went to his belt.

“Oh, are you serious?” Stark groused with open annoyance and frustration that came with an air of disappointment, “You think that hasn’t been tried before? For Christ sake, there really isn’t an original thought out there anymore, is there?” he complained, “Come on, here look,” he says, getting into a mockery of a standard kneeling position, “Try something new! They say eye contact is a big one,” he leers back at the Dom, batting his eyes.

When the dumbass actually does lean in to snarl in Stark’s face, the kneeling man headbutts him in the nose, sweeps his legs out and raises his bound arms.

A strange relief fills James in that moment.

A repulsor beam severs the chain and another moment later Stark is encased in the suit.

It’s interesting, seeing the lethality of the Iron Man suit in action. It makes James think that maybe Stark wasn’t trying as hard as he could have in Siberia.

Tony Stark swaggers into the meeting room thirty minutes later, talking animatedly with Rhodes.

The room turns to him, a mix of concern and fear and expectancy.

“In my defense,” he starts, before locating the two teenage Avengers and sending them out of the room. After some back and forth, he begins again, “In my defense, I was off duty and I was very drunk,” he discloses.

Before anyone with any real right to speak can get a word in, Steve is standing, “And that’s an excuse to purposefully antagonise the Dom that captured you?” Steve demands.

“Absolutely not, I don’t need to be drunk for that,” he says, and then takes in Steve’s posture and adds, “Clearly”.

Tony’s glad when Danvers interrupts before Rogers can get in another word, though not very much, “How drunk, Tony?” she asks.

“I’m sober enough now,” he lies and gives a bright, fake smile that they all see through.

He also moves towards the mini-fridge in the corner of the room with a small stagger in case anyone had actually been gullible enough to believe him. Barnes stands in his way, but he moves gracefully out of Tony’s path after nothing but a pointed look.

James doesn’t even realise he’s moved until he’s ducking his head and trying to appear passive and docile to Stark who barely glances his way despite the unusual behaviour. Steve bristles beside him enough for them both, James thinks.

James is a terrible Dom, he knows. He thinks Stark might be an even worse Sub though.

“We’ll debrief tomorrow,” Danvers says, “Go sober up,” she insists.

Tony drinks the bottle of water he takes from the fridge, gives himself a light slap on his already bruised cheek and says, “Sober as I’m getting, we’ll do this now,” and sits down at the conference table. He is very much still drunk considering he doesn’t feel the contact very much, but he’s already pissy from having been caught so unawares and then having to deal with those dumb ass AIM goons, so he’s not in the mood to follow anyone’s orders. Not even from his well respected co-captain of the Avengers.

He doesn’t wait for anybody’s permission to launch into the details of the attack. AIM, personal vendetta, lacking resources, had no idea what to do when they got him, Friday’s already located their base, a handful of has-been scientists working on Extremis again.

“I’ll launch an attack tomorrow,” he finishes.

“You’ll be in mandatory therapy with a trauma response Dom,” Wilson says plaintively, “That can take a lot out of a Sub, we should send another team,” he tries.

Tony snorts a laugh, “Yeah, nice try, but no,” he says simply, “I’ve got a free twenty minutes to waste next Friday though, I’ll be sure to schedule it in then,” he adds.

Rhodey sighs, “With who?” he asks, “You’ve been through every trained Dom available in the city,” he exaggerates. Or maybe not. Tony has been down this road with a lot of professional Doms. Not one of them made it past an hour. Except one. One stayed two hours, because Tony fell asleep about five minutes into the kink checklist and the women stayed for his hour long power nap.

Tony see’s Rogers about to open his mouth, likely to volunteer for the job. It’s no secret that Captain America has been waiting for the opportunity to put Tony in his place since Tony became the captain of the new Avengers and Danvers the captain of the Avengers of yonder.

Tony is still pretty drunk, so he blames that in part on what he says next. There’s more to it though. He just can’t help the curiosity that has bloomed as a Sub who’s never subbed about a Dom who _has_.

“Barnes,” he says with a sharp grin.

Rogers _pales_.

“Low stakes,” Tony goes on, “Dom that can’t dom, Sub that can’t sub,” he says, “Match made in heaven”.

They aren’t actually on the worst of terms either. They’ve had a few normal, small-talk conversations, have sparred in the gym a couple of times. They nod when they see each other in passing. Like distant neighbours really.

That being said, he’s not expecting Barnes to agree. He’s been having a real hard time in that area anyways, and Tony’s not known for boosting the ego of Dom’s. Rather, he’s known for doing the opposite.

Rhodey drops his head into his hands and groans only to jerk his head back up when Barnes shrugs and says, “Okay I guess,” in that mumbled way of his.

When James agreed, he wasn’t really sure what he was thinking, but a few days later, as he’s awake for maybe the third or forth night in a row and paranoid beyond reason, he’s wondering if that was the smartest idea.

He and Stark were on okay terms, he thinks, but Stark has shown himself to be very skilled, resourceful and committed when he wants something, and he doesn’t mind waiting for it. Anybody who stands their ground in the face of Steve Rogers is a force to be reckoned with, in James’s opinion.

It could all be an excuse to get a second chance at an attempt on James’s life.

It’s hard to say, when Stark floats into the kitchen as James is haunting the dark corner by the windows of the breakfast nook.

“You look like shit,” he says, and James is surprised he’s even been noticed, considering it’s four in the morning and still dark out. Stark doesn’t bother to turn on lights, moving around the space like he’s got it memorized. Odd, considering that James has never seen him in here before. Stark’s rooms are in another wing of the compound with his charges.

He supposes the kitchens must be similar though. All the rooms were identical and empty when they arrived. James’s still is.

“Yeah,” he mumbled his agreement.

He watches as Stark goes through the motion of making himself a cup of coffee. James doesn’t drink coffee, he’s too paranoid already, he doesn’t need any more nervous energy. He wishes he could turn his brain off sometimes, like he used to with Hydra, but he’s not really supposed to want that, so, he doesn’t drink coffee. Happy medium.

“Hey Stark,” James gathers the strength to say as the man turns to leave, he pauses and turns back to James, “I’m sorry about your mom,” he whispers.

James isn’t sure what he expects, but for Stark to sigh, nod his head and say softly, “Yeah, me too,” and then come sit across the booth from James wasn’t it.

He takes a long drink of his coffee before he looks at James again, “Look, I’m not going to tell you the same bullshit Rogers does, because I know it doesn’t help, alright? It wasn’t your fault, you didn’t mean to, you didn’t know what you were doing,” he waves the words away, “I know it’s meaningless, alright? It’s just words, and what you’re feeling, that’s not going away with pretty lies and excuses,” he says, “But I will forgive you, and that’s… that’s the truth,” he finishes with a decisive nod.

“You will?” James hears himself ask, hopeful. He doesn’t think he’ll ever forgive himself… but if Stark forgives him, maybe that will be enough that he can fall asleep every now and again.

Instead of answering, Stark looks into the distance and recounts his own experience to James, “When I finally woke up and realized what I was doing, what my weapons were doing, I stopped,” he says simply, “Became Iron Man, tried to make up for it,” he says into his coffee cup and then looks up, “Is that what you’re doing?” he asks the ceiling.

James nods, “Yeah,” he chokes out, “I’m trying,” he adds, because it just doesn’t feel like enough.

Stark nods, “That’s all any of us are doing,” he says, “That’s all I’m asking you to do”.

“That’s good enough?” James can’t help but whisper.

“It is for me,” Stark says after a long while, “Is it enough for you?”.

James doesn’t know the answer to that. He doesn’t give one, just pulls his feet up, knees to chest and tries to be smaller.

Stark leaves him with that, but he puts a comforting hand on James’s shoulder before he leaves. He doesn’t say anything, just squeezes gently when James tenses under the contact, and then he’s gone.

James doesn’t see him again until twenty to five on Friday like he’s supposed to. He’s exactly on time which makes Stark raise an eyebrow at his watch, silently judging.

“Alright, you got twenty minutes,” he says, “You have my attention for maybe five,” he gives a tight smile and walks further into the apartment.

James follows an exact two steps behind the other man, which isn’t doing much to assert his dominance in the slightest.

He has no idea what he’s doing, but already a five minute countdown is ticking in the back of his head while he tries to scrounge up something to say, something to do.

He knows there’s supposed to be more discussion. They’re supposed to discuss kinks and limits and rules and safewords like he did with the professional Sub, but Stark turns with an expectant eyebrow raised and James scrambles to say something before Stark writes this whole thing off.

“Uh,” James says, voice cracking with nerves, “Kneel,” he tries, but it comes out more like a question than a command.

He’s not surprised when Stark laughs in his face, “You sure? You don’t sound very sure. Try again, but this time with feeling,” he winks.

Stark turns his back to James, goes to the bar and pours himself a drink. He doesn’t offer one to James like he’s supposed to as a Sub, but James doesn’t really blame him. They both know this isn’t going anywhere. He’s not sure what Stark was thinking when he made the demand, or what he himself was thinking when he agreed.

At least he can say he tried once more, and this time he won’t be responsible for a Sub going into subdrop and having a panic attack. Mostly because the Sub he’s with isn’t even a Sub.

James doesn’t super understand what’s wrong with him, but he knows whatever it is, that Stark is even more messed up. Hydra had files on Stark, and how the Ten Rings held him captive for months and he never showed signs of subdrop, dom withdrawal, or subspace no matter how harsh or how gentle they were with him.

He’s not normal.

Neither is James.

“Kneel,” James says again, and it’s barely a whisper.

Stark snorts and turns, whiskey glass in hand, “You need to mean it,” he says and steps into James’s space.

He flinches at the hand that grips his jaw, but while the hand is firm, it doesn’t hurt. He could step back and out of reach and be fine, and yet when Stark makes eye contact, his gaze dark and burning, but clear despite the alcohol, James stays put.

“You have to want it,” he says, voice low now that they’re standing so close, James feels hypnotised, entranced by Stark, at the physical point of contact, at the swirl of gold in his eyes, the deep rumble of his voice. There is something that James wants, but he has no idea what that may be.

“You have to envision what you want, be confident, be sure,” he says using his grip on James’s jaw to lower his chin but he keeps the eye contact. For a moment James wonders if he’s going to get head butted, but he doubts that’s what’s happening. Something inside him that’s constantly on high alert, constantly vigilant and on edge and swirling inside him begins to slow, to uncoil, to relax.

“When you give a command, you give it knowing it _will_ be followed,” he advises with a small jerk of James’s head for emphasis on something, not that he knows what and then Stark’s eyes turn impossibly darker and heated and his voice, smooth and burning like the whiskey in his hand lets the next word flow just as he instructed James.

“ _Kneel_ ”.

James crumples to his knees.

There’s a sharp intake of breath, but James isn’t sure who in comes from.

He just knows that Tony Stark is _not_ a Sub. Not anymore than James is a Dom.

Neither speak, and Stark doesn’t try and touch him.

James doesn’t think this is what it was like with Hydra. Not as he kneels at Starks feet, staring at shiny dress shoes. There’s no fear or anticipation, just the feeling of bonelessness, like his strings have been cut. He’s not hanging on to the expectation of pain, even though he really should be all things considered.

But Stark had his chance to kill, and he didn’t take it. He had the chance to maim and hurt, and he did until he was well and truly done with James and Steve. He will forgive James one day, so he’ll at least make sure he lives that long.

James doesn’t know what the other man wants now, but something in that fiery gaze when Stark tilts James’s head up tells him he just got it.

“Pretty,” he whispers under his breath, and James isn’t sure if he’s meant to hear it of not.

James has had this view of a lot of Doms in his lifetime, it’s very familiar. Because of this, he can say with quite a bit of certainty, that Stark looks every bit the Dom that people say that he’s not.

Barnes is blinking slowly up at him, and Tony knows what Subs look like in Subspace. He’s watched Doms take Subs down into that floaty headspace in effort to learn how to be a Sub the way he’s supposed to. So, he can say with confidence that Barnes is skirting the edge of actual honest-to-god _subspace_.

And Tony is riding something entirely different.

He feels alight and shockingly aware of his body and at the same time he feels completely outside of himself, like he’s observing from a distance. His blood is fire in his veins and his hands don’t shake even though they almost always are when not wrapped up in a project, fine tuning and soldering away.

He feels level, and strong, and his heart beats in a way that is sure, and real like it hasn’t since the arc reactor.

Tony takes in the line of Barnes’s shoulders and it’s more lax than he’s ever seen the man, and that includes staring at him asleep through the glass of a cryogenic tube in Wakanda. He takes in the haze in his eyes, the slackness of his jaw, the openness of his body, how he rests his hands palm up on the tops of his thighs. He’s sat back on his heals in a lazy Subs kneel.

Tony wants.

He wants to see how far this goes because it’s not just psychosomatic. Not with the way he’s blinking like he wants to clear his head and _can’t_.

He doesn’t have enough data to make any real hypothesis, but Tony has a feeling in his gut that this is _real_.

And he _wants_.

“Do you want me to show you more?” He asks, hardly recognizing the low tone of his own voice as he tilts Barnes’s head up.

It sends a shiver down his spine, the way Barnes lets him, lets his head fall back and exposes the delicate expanse if his throat to Tony.

Barnes’s expression pinches, but it’s not pain or fear, but desperation when he exhales his affirmative in a breathy, “please,” that does _something_ to Tony’s head.

He feels _high_.

“Safeword,” he says and the world seems to narrow down to the body in front of him, and his brain is buzzing with possibilities, ways to illicit reactions and responses and sounds and colours from the man at his feet.

The feeling isn’t all together unfamiliar. It’s similar to the way he feels when he’s on a roll on the lab, when he’s had a breakthrough and he puts his whole body and mind into the creation of something. Similar to flying a new suit, going higher, faster, being stronger than before. That indestructible, on top of the world feeling of control and pride.

“Hydra,” Barnes whispers, but it still sounds loud in the quiet of the space.

Tony nods and swallows thickly. Excitement is trapped in his throat somewhere.

He wants to pull the control from Barnes’s body through breathless gasps and whines and screams and he wants to take it for his own, guard it in his own chest and keep it safe.

He wants to keep Barnes safe.

He thinks it should be odd, that he’s not thinking about causing pain so much as he’s thinking about taking the tension away from Barnes’s body, but he’s long since learned to just go with it.

“You have to focus,” Tony hears himself say huskily. He knows a lot about how to Dom, given the experience he’s had with them, but it all seems to feel instinctual now as his cups Barnes’s jaw again, “Focus on the Sub, on their reactions,” he whispers, “It’s about what you want them to feel, what you want them to do, it’s about taking away everything that isn’t what you’re giving, about watching everything else fade away,” he breathes, “all that’s left is what I control, what I give, and what you’re willing to take,” he finishes.

He’s mesmerized by the dreamy expression on Barnes’s face, traces the shape of his parted lips with his thumb.

“Open,” he says, and watches Barnes’s eyelids droop and mouth fall open.

He slides two fingers in across his tongue, the heat burns and shocks like electricity at the same time. He feels the texture, the wetness, the flexing of the muscle against the pads of his fingers even though they’ve been numb with callouses his entire adult life.

He presses harder and harder, slides his fingers deeper and watches tears well up in Barnes’s eyes and yet he makes no sound nor movement.

Tony wants to hear the sound of him gagging, wants to watch as he stays so perfectly still even as his throat burns.

He removes his fingers and Barnes keeps his mouth open obediently.

“Good boy,” he hears himself praise, breathless.

Barnes’s eyes flutter shut for a moment before opening and focusing on Tony again. The blue is swallowed by darkness, and there’s a distance in his stare that Tony knows means he’s floating.

He dips his fingers into the whiskey he hasn’t managed to drop somehow, and then slides the soaked digits across Barnes’s tongue and nearly down his throat.

A tear escapes his eye this time, and there’s the wet sound of him gagging as his throat convulses around Tony’s fingers.

Tony knows this particular bottle burns incredibly bright across the senses, the smokiness adding to the heat of it. It’s the kind that leaves his lips numb after the first few sips, and he spends time tracing the line of Barnes’s plush bottom lip with the drink before choking him on it again, and again, and again.

More tears, more gagging, something that sounds almost like a moan, and time stands still.

The sounds he makes are small, and Tony wants more. Wants louder, drawn out and desperate sounds, and he knows he can make them if he tries, so he sets down his whiskey glass and grabs a fistful of hair that’s just been begging to be pulled.

“Tap me to safeword,” he says lowly, and yanks Barnes’s head back hard enough that the Winter Soldier cries out, only to open his mouth again a second later, because he is _so obedient_ and Tony’s barely done anything to him.

Tony jams his fingers down his throat until the kneeling man can’t breath and every attempted to do so makes his face go pinker and pinker, and even with the lack of oxygen he moans with what little air he has left when Tony pulls on his hair a little harder, his eyes rolling back.

Tony pushed down until he starts gagging, but doesn’t let up at all.

The sound is so pretty.

All for Tony.

Tony has made Barnes look like this, tears in his eyes and down his cheeks, drool on his chin, face red and blotchy with lack of oxygen.

Hard.

Barnes is very hard in his jeans.

Tony pulls his fingers out and Barnes drags rough, stuttered and ragged breaths in. Tony likes that sound too, so he wraps a hand around his throat and cuts it off so he can control how long that ragged breathing lasts.

Barnes’s expression is so open and trusting, as with the rest of his body language. It’s the best part of it. He’s not taking Barnes’s control, not like everyone has tried to do to Tony, but Barnes is just giving it to him.

Tony accepts it greedily.

He gets so caught up in it that everything else fades away. All he sees is Barnes. All he hears, feels, smells, it’s all Barnes. The way he stays exactly how Tony wants him, the way he gags when Tony presses down with two fingers, and chokes when he does it with three. It’s like learning the quirks of a new machine, and Tony sets out to master the symphony of sounds and reaction from Barnes.

The ego and narcissism that Tony tries so very hard to keep under wraps bursts to the surface and he grins sharp and cruel down at the crying man at his feet.

Barnes has given him this, has let Tony rise above him this way, and it’s beautiful.

He wants to ruin this man.

“Spread your legs,” he says, and Barnes never hesitates. “God, you’re so easy,” he marvels. It is so goddamn easy. It feels amazing.

Barnes makes the prettiest little whine at that, and his hips, that perfect stillness starts to unravel with desperation.

Tony thinks he can feel the heat of Barnes’s body through the leather of his shoe when he presses it to the front of Barnes’s pants, over the straining bulge there.

The sound he makes is similar to a cat yowling and it makes Tony laugh quietly at the yearning and beautiful submission in front of him. He did this.

This is for him.

This barely coherent, half-crazed with desire, spaced out version of Barnes, the Winter Soldier, it all belongs to Tony.

Tony’s to take apart, put back together, to push lower and lower, let him sink into blissful oblivion as Tony himself soars higher and higher.

He watches, not pressing against Barnes cock, as it gets harder and harder to stay still and be good. Tony is hit with the understanding that he is responsible in a way no one ever lets him be. Responsible for noticing every minute detail of Barnes’s body, how tension starts to build as obedience starts to slip, fingers twitching where they should be still and so he removes his foot. Barnes hisses a breathy sound.

“You’re doing so good,” Tony praises, and he walks a slow circle around Barnes as the Sub tries to breathe. Tony comes to a stop behind him, he doesn’t grab, he doesn’t pull, but he guides Barnes’s arms behind his back, wraps his flesh hand around the metal wrist with gentle touches and revels in the way Barnes shivers at every little brush of contact.

“Stay,” Tony directs.

“Yes, sir,” Barnes _slurs_.

He does exactly what he’s told. Tony still can’t wrap his head around how easy this is.

Tony walks back around and presses his foot against Barnes’s cock again, feeling even more empowered now that Barnes is restraining himself and seeing how the tension skyrockets before bleeding rapidly back away.

Barnes looks both incredibly strong, and delicately fragile like this. Jumping and straining muscles as Tony presses harder and harder with his foot, yet there’s a distinct shaking throughout his whole body, vibrating out of his skin.

“I want to see you come apart,” Tony murmurs, leaning down, more pressure on his cock and getting a hand in those silky locks of hair again, “I want you to come like this,” he says, “And you will, won’t you? Because you are so good at giving me what I want,” he praises.

Barnes nods rapidly, “Yeah, yes,” he pants, “Yes sir, I-I’ll give you a-anything you wa-want” he stammers through panting moans and hissing sighs.

Tony can feel his smile, likely cruel and mean looking, but he can’t help it. He loves this. He thinks about leaving Barnes like this, teary eyed and desperate forever. He’s too curious for that though.

He wants to take apart Barnes like an engine, piece by piece, with care and precision. Want’s to play with every part of him like he’s a puzzle, a game, a toy.

“Come for me now,” he says, because he can tell Barnes is _there_. Is so close. Needs this.

Tony doesn’t know how he knows it, he’s never been prided for being observant of other people, but still. He knows Barnes’s body somehow.

Barnes’s hips finally press up against Tony’s shoe with a slight wiggle, breaking the stillness for just a moment as he lets out a strangled moan and Tony yanks hard of his hair once again, wrenching his head back and exposing the vulnerable column of his throat, slightly pink where Tony had wrapped his hand around it earlier.

“Fu—uh, ah, ah, oh,” Barnes gasps high and breathy and Tony thinks he feels the twitching of Barnes’s cock under his foot, and it just feeds into the complex Tony’s riding, making this man come apart under his shoe.

The sound is his favourite.

The broken curse, trailing off into desperate gasps and inarticulate sounds of pleasure and need. Relief and pain swirling into something that makes Barnes’s face look tense and relaxed at the same time.

He looks ten years younger when Tony finally takes his foot away.

Barnes doesn’t move his arms from where Tony positioned them, just bows his head and breathes spastically.

Tony runs a gentle hand through his hair this time, “Good boy,” his own voice sounds breathless too.

He’s still riding that hard, stimulating high just looking at Barnes catching his breath from his orgasm and so when Friday’s voice filters slowly into his awareness, it confuses the hell out of him.

Reality begins to seep in, and he becomes aware of his surroundings outside of Barnes.

Just in time too, because it’s been thirty minutes instead of the scheduled twenty and Rogers is looking for his pal.

The pal that’s in fucking subspace on Tony’s living room floor.

The pal, who is the Winter Solider, who is Bucky Barnes, who is his parents murderer, who is the guy Tony seriously thought about killing a year ago, who is a Dom but who is actually a Sub, and who is in subspace kneeling in come filled jeans on Tony’s living room floor.

Because Tony, who is a Sub, who is actually a Dom, put him there.

Fuck.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not how real life subdrop/domdrop works!

James wakes up.

That’s the first thing that he finds strange. He doesn’t sleep. He dozes in and out of consciousness, he rests, but he doesn’t sleep. Not in any way that would lead to him needing to wake up, floating gently into reality lying horizontal on something soft and warm.

It’s dark where he is too. That’s unusual. He doesn’t usually let himself relax during the night.

The space is unfamiliar, but familiar at the same time. He immediately recognizes the trademark of the Compound’s architecture, but it’s an area he’s not sure he’s seen before. The lights coming in the window are different, as is the décor colour scheme.

He’s not alone.

It takes him way too long to notice that last part, especially because whoever is with him is touching him, and _talking_.

Stark.

He’s lying on a couch in Tony Stark’s apartment with his feet in the man’s lap.

He tries to panic, because he thinks that’s probably what he’s supposed to do, but Stark doesn’t let him, hand tightening of James’s ankle when his breathing changes.

“Good morning,” Stark says simply.

“What,” James rasps.

“Take your time,” Stark says quietly, more gently than he thinks he’s ever heard, and James finds himself nodding and taking a breath.

Memories start to surface, but the panic can’t build with Stark’s thumb rubbing gentle circles against the delicate bone of his ankle.

_Kneel._

_Do you want me to show you more?_

_Good boy._

_Come for me now._

It felt nothing like what it felt like to submit for handlers with Hydra.

That’s what that was, right?

Submission.

But nothing hurt, even the things that should hurt. Everything felt warm, soft, even the sharp pinpricks of pain when Stark pulled on his hair were followed by a rush of heat crashing over his skin, soothing over the hurt.

The world had seemed to dim, colours and details he usually finds overwhelming became soft and faded and so _manageable_.

Fear, anxiety, and expectation drifted into nothingness. Even with the limited direction from Stark, James just _knew_ what to do, even though Hydra had never taught him, even though he was a Dom who shouldn’t understand these things at all.

_It’s about taking away everything that isn’t what you’re giving, about watching everything else fade away. All that’s left is what I control, what I give, and what you’re willing to take._

The control. Stark had amazing control, and a better understanding of how to dominate than James ever remembers having.

What does this mean? He tried to grapple with it but it slips through his fingers like sand.

He just knows it felt so good. Better than anything he’s ever experienced in his life.

All the pain and the guilt had left him. Stark had taken it all, taken everything that James didn’t need and left him with soft euphoria, left him only with the things that Stark wanted him to have, and James felt such a profound sense of acceptance and trust in the man above him that it seemed the only thing to do.

It didn’t change that what happened wasn’t supposed to have happened though. It was one thing to be so emotionally damaged he couldn’t Dom anymore, one thing to have submitted to Hydra Doms after years or torture and programing, but it was another thing all together to submit to a man who wasn’t even a Dom.

“What,” he tries, and takes a steadying breath, “What is wrong with us?” he asks softly.

Stark sighs, “Buddy, I have no idea,” he says honestly, and while it’s not what James was hoping to hear, it’s what he expected.

James should go. Whatever they did… they shouldn’t have. He gets up, and Stark lets him. Tells him that Steve’s looking for him and that Friday told the other man James had a panic attack and was sleeping it off.

It’s close enough to the truth in that it is the exact opposite of what really happened, he supposes.

For the first time since… since ever, really, James doesn’t feel constantly on edge, jumpy and out of his skin. At first it’s amazing. The hours after he woke up on Stark’s couch after whatever the hell it was that they did felt _good_.

He could breathe, he could relax just a little. Everything felt calmer, quieter, he felt like he was better equipped to handle the world.

It didn’t last long though.

A few hours and suddenly he was hit with a wave of exhaustion. Bone deep and aching. The kind of tired that makes every breath feel like a chore, every step a feat, talking was just out of the question. He felt cold, clammy and sweaty soon after. A headache bloomed behind his eyes and colours seemed to scream at him in a tangible way.

His flesh hand was shaking.

This might be worse than the paranoia.

He started drinking coffee after the second day of barely keeping his head up and eyes open. The third day brought a sense of horrible and inevitable doom. He felt a tragic and heart-wrenching sadness inside, and suddenly all the compartmentalization he’s worked so hard at crumpled, falling to pieces and knocking the air from his lungs like a physical blow.

All his progress seemed miniscule in the face of everything he’s seen. The pain he’s caused, the horrible things he’s done. He could never make up for it, and his motivation to even try was just… gone.

The forth day James didn’t leave his room.

Tony felt good for the first time since he was tested and deemed a Sub. Or maybe since the last time he was riding a really nice cocaine high. He felt years younger, energetic and rejuvenated. He spent hours in the lab coming up with too many new ideas for projects he couldn’t keep track of them all. It was great.

For a little while.

Then he started to get way too caught up in his work. He spent hours staring at schematics and getting progressively more frustrated when the numbers and calculations wouldn’t do what he wanted. He started bouncing between projects too quickly to go anywhere with any of them.

Then he was starting to get anxious and panicky. He had all this energy bubbling up inside and nothing was enough to disperse it. He couldn’t sleep. Could barely eat. He just needed to do more and more and he should be burning out but he wasn’t.

And then he was angry.

Tony isn’t really an angry person. He’s too cold and callous. His revenge comes slow and calculated, his pain burns bright and fiery, yes, but he’s not one for senseless violence. He doesn’t spend hours beating punching bags senseless like some of the other Avengers.

His aggression is guided and cruel and mean, but it’s not directionless.

But this? This is directionless rage.

It’s been a long time since Tony’s seen that level of concern in Rhodey’s eyes.

Tony can admit, he probably didn’t need to punch Hank Pym in the face three times. The murderous robots were an accident, and honestly it didn’t take too much effort to get rid of them, but he didn’t appreciate the Avengers becoming the other scientists clean up crew.

It’s not until Pepper comes down into the workshop that he realises he’s destroyed more things than he’s built in the last week and that there is something very, very wrong.

“You need to see Bruce,” she tells him, and for once, he’s actually on board with that.

He regrets it as soon as Bruce is there though, looking around and judging silently.

“The numbers weren’t working out,” Tony defends the heap of scrap metal that was supposed to be a new suit.

“So, you decided to beat it into submission with a sledgehammer,” Bruce says slowly.

“Among other things, yes,” Tony says primly.

Bruce just raises an eyebrow, “When was the last time you slept?” he asks.

“Last night, for ten minutes,” he answers with a shrug.

Bruce’s brows meet his hairline and Tony regrets this so much. He can’t sit still either, and he knows that Bruce is watching his fidgeting trying to figure out what’s wrong with him but Tony doubts they’ll come to any conclusion other than Tony being a fucking mess.

“Tell me what’s going through your head, Tony,” he says gentler.

Frustrated, Tony does, “Nothing,” he says, “Not really. I just have all this energy and no matter what I do, it doesn’t go away,” he sighs angerly, “I’m so angry, it’s like I’m stuck in fight or flight, and I’ve committed to fighting, but there’s nothing to fight, nothing to hurt, nothing. There’s nothing to _do_ ,” he says on another sigh, and shakes his head, “I know, it doesn’t make any sense. It’s been a slow month, no big bads, maybe that’s it,” he says to cover up and explain away the vulnerability.

Bruce squints at him, like that will somehow help him understand Tony somehow.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it’s Domdrop,” Bruce says with a frown.

That makes Tony a choked off sound when his heart stops and starts painfully in his chest.

Domdrop.

Dom. Drop.

Dom.

Tony’s familiar with it, he’s learned just about everything there is to know about Dom/Sub relationships purely because he’s never experienced one.

Domdrop, happens when a scene doesn’t end properly. The Dom get’s stuck in a high headspace for a while, typically causing frustration, anxiety, trouble sleeping, a sense of loss of control that leads to aggression and then… the crash.

The sudden low.

Can manifest as sadness, regret, or _anger_.

With the realization, Tony thinks he can check off regret too, because if he’s going through this, that means Barnes is probably fucked up too, and Tony’s barely spared a thought to the other man these last couple of days because he’s too fucking selfish to admit what happened.

James is sitting in the breakfast nook again, it’s his favourite place to spend his sleepless nights. It’s a popular spot during the day, always has someone sitting in it, talking laughing, being alive. He likes to pretend that he can still feel the essence of life when he’s here alone.

He’s not alone tonight though, Stark slides in the booth across from him, and he doesn’t immediately start talking.

He takes in James’s appearance, likely noting how shitty he looks. James can’t be bothered to say anything. He hasn’t in a few days.

“I’m sorry,” Stark says.

James just shrugs. He doesn’t know what for, but it’s fine.

“You’re going through Subdrop,” he says softly, “I should have realized sooner, but I—I wasn’t thinking,” he says and places a bottle of something on the table, “These are supposed to help, I modified them according to Bruce’s calculations on your metabolism, but I honestly don’t know if they’ll work since you’re not… not technically a Sub, so…” he trails off, rubbing a hand over his face with a sigh, “It’s worth trying, so just take one every morning until it’s empty,” he directs.

James hesitates to really look at the other man, but when he does Stark looks like shit too. He’s searching James face for something and the longer he looks, the worse his own face appears with worry lines, dark bags under his eyes plagued with a sadness James hadn’t seen the last time they made eye contact.

“Can you do that for me?” Stark asks softly.

James nods, because he’ll do just about anything to not feel this way anymore.

He’ll do just about anything for Stark too, but that’s not something he wants to think about.

“What about you?” James asks quietly.

Stark gives a half-assed smile and holds up what looks like a hand-rolled cigarette, but James assumes it’s not tobacco.

“All sorted,” he says and leaves.

James does as directed, and a week later, he’s back to his normal self, not that that’s actually a huge improvement. He’s still horribly depressed, has terrible sleeping patterns, is constantly afraid, and generally hates himself and is crippled by guilt, but at least he has a little bit of motivation back to become a better person.

He and Stark don’t talk anymore about what happened. About what’s wrong with them both. About how the medication that’s meant for Subs works on James whose bloodwork still shows he’s a dom.

They go back to exchanging mild pleasantries in passing and it just doesn’t come up.

Not much at least.

James isn’t sure how the conversation starts, because Stark tends to avoid Barton like the plague (and honestly so does James) so how the two of them ended up in a conversation, he’s not sure.

“I’m just saying,” Barton said, faux teasingly, but there was real malice hidden in his features, “You’re a rich guy, you could easily pay people off to keep their mouths shut”.

Stark rolls his eyes, he’s updating Friday, the computer AI, in their wing today. James is pretty sure he could have done it remotely, or when the room wasn’t full, but he seems to be making a point to Romanoff who recently attempted to break into Friday’s system.

“How much to get you to shut yours?” he grumbles.

Ignoring him, Barton goes on, “And the Ten Rings? At the very least you went into withdrawal, which would make it easy to—” James isn’t sure what the hell possesses him to defend Stark, considering they’re barely even colleagues at this point, but he doesn’t like what Barton is insinuating.

That Stark’s been lying about not submitting. That torture could have broken him.

“Hydra had files from the Ten Rings,” James says, “Stark never broke, no symptoms of withdrawal either,” he mumbles.

He speaks so infrequently that he doesn’t need to raise his voice to be heard. The rasp of sound immediately grabs attention.

“No withdrawal, though? That doesn’t seem right,” Barton argues.

“Need to know what you’re missing in order to miss it,” Stark points out, and then closes the panel he had been working in.

James thinks that’s called _foreshadowing_.

***

Ignoring the fact that James really is a Dom… he’s never known submission as good as it was with Stark. James has been made to submit before, all the time, for seventy years he was on his knees, mindless to his own will or desire, dependant only on the people telling him what to do.

With Stark though, he was aware of his own will and desires, and they just happen to be the same as what Stark wanted.

It felt so good.

He’s never felt so safe, so held by anyone. Just a few small points of controlling contact, and the world faded to let James exist for once.

It’s so hard for him to exist today though, two months after that blissful evening.

The world feels painful. He’s got a splitting headache that started a few days ago and is only getting worse. Sound, no matter how quiet feels like a physical blow. Light, the same thing, burning his eyes.

The whole world seems to be attacking him with stimulus and he can’t… he can’t handle it.

His skin feels tight and itchy, his metal arm hurts every time it touches his side. The cold frigid and burning.

So of course that’s when they get called out to assist Iron Man’s team for the first time.

Tony’s been feeling… off the last couple of days.

The world feels muted, dull, and everything just isn’t enough.

He thought about going to Bruce again, but he decides against it purely because he doesn’t want to deal with the concern.

He doesn’t want to explain the cut on the palm of his hand either.

Nothing seemed to register in his mind beyond a superficial understanding of events. He didn’t register the strength of which he held on to the glass in his hand until it shattered under the force, and then…. Then he didn’t register the pain as he just kept squeezing the broken cup, glass slicing into his palm and eliciting no response at all.

It took Riri walking into the kitchen to make him stop, because at the very least he can register the concern in her voice.

So, yeah. He feels off.

He’s hoping that the latest mission will get him out of whatever funk he’s in, but of course it doesn’t.

The universe does in fact hate him.

Almost as much as he hates aliens, Tony assumes.

The mission requires the full force of the Avengers, but Tony would have just been happy with Danvers, since she’s like a literal super nova and Rogers and his lot just trail after her in her amazing glory.

Danvers fights with a vengeance, and so does Tony. It’s quite the team-up. The new head of Hydra and a handful of Skrulls.

He couldn’t deny Danvers the opportunity, nor could he deny Barnes a chance to kick some Hydra ass too.

Though Barnes maybe wasn’t as ready for this as they all thought.

Don’t get him wrong, Barnes can handle himself, and he does fine up until the bitter end, but Tony has seen Barnes, has fought Barnes both on the matts and in real life, so he knows that Barnes can do better than he’s doing.

While Tony’s fighting a lot harder than he needs to, Barnes isn’t fighting hard enough. Which would be fine, because Barnes is still a fucking tank of a fighter, but Tony isn’t the only one who notices Barnes’s lack of enthusiasm.

Madame Hydra.

From what Tony’s gathered, she’s new to the management roll, but she’s been with Hydra a long, long time.

She seems to recognize the Winter Soldier.

The fight is coming to a close, and she’s desperate to get the upper hand.

Barnes is such an easy target. Isolated from the group and lagging behind. Slow, weak. Panicky and uncoordinated. She sets her sights on him.

James can barely see who he’s fighting. Even with his goggles, dark and comforting, the sun is still too blinding, his brain on fire with pain that has no discernible source.

He recognizes her voice though and when she tells him he doesn’t want to fight her, for a moment he doesn’t.

But he does. He does want to fight her. Fight this.

Telling her no has never been a good thing, and it’s not now either. It makes him feel sick, and he sways on his feet, and he doesn’t want to give in to what she tells him, but he thinks he needs to if he’s going to survive.

He’s terrified of that. Of her.

He doesn’t realize he’s backing away until he collides with something hard and solid, but it’s not a wall.

It’s one of her Skrull goons.

The contact burns, it hurts and overwhelms him and every movement, every attempt at struggle makes it worse, worse, worse, and he knows the only way the pain stops is if he gives in and does what he’s told. He doesn’t know how he knows that, but he feels the truth of it in his bones.

He doesn’t want to though.

He doesn’t want to do what they’re telling him. He doesn’t want to be dragged away and forced to hurt more innocent people.

It takes Tony a moment to realize what’s happening, but when he does, he springs into action. Madame Hydra is trying to command Barnes like he’s a Sub, which makes too much sense because that’s how Hydra had always treated him.

But it’s working.

Not that Barnes is giving up, but he is responding to the commands if only in the form of denying them and further disorienting himself trying to reject her will like that.

Tony and Rogers both arrive to Barnes’s aid at the same time. Tony immediately attacks Madame Hydra, while Rogers goes for the Skrull still restraining Barnes.

Tony advances on the women until she’s forced back and is surrounded by the other waiting heroes and then he turns to deliver the final blow to the last standing Skrull.

Barnes just sort of stands there, and while no one can see his face through the muzzle and goggles he still wears, it’s painfully obvious he’s tense enough to snap. Tony thinks he can make out the vibrating tension even from a distance, even through the layers of protective gear he wears.

It’s no surprise that he immediately starts having a panic attack when Rogers touches him.

The surprising part is when after a lot of cajoling and a lot more dragging, Rogers and Wilson get him on the quinjet, get his mask off and away and Barnes just starts repeating “Hydra,” over and over again.

Tony’s heart ends up somewhere near his feet, concerning because there’s a chunk of metal and circuitry dissecting the path.

_Safeword?_

_Hydra._

Barnes is trying to safeword out.

It’s a punch to the gut. It’s horrifying.

James is so disoriented he can’t tell who is talking to him, but he knows there’s too many people trying. He keeps hearing things like “Can you…” and “Do you want to…” and “Would you like…” and it’s making his brain burn. Wherever they’ve taken him is bright with white light and it’s blinding—so much he can’t see the hands touching him, and he hates it. There’s too many, the voices too much, the light too much.

Everything to _too much_.

He doesn’t know who has him, but he knows he needs to fight the urge he has to _be had_.

He tries to curl up and hide from the lights, but now there’s flashing ones in his face, and the voices are louder and he has to cover his ears because if something doesn’t stop he’s going to vomit.

Suddenly though, the lights all go away. The voices are still there, and there’s a lot of them, and he can’t focus on them, but he’s not biting back bile anymore, so there’s that.

The hands are all gone now too, he realises in time. No one is hurting him.

But everything still hurts.

_So badly_.

He thinks he hears his own whimpering, and that hurts too.

Hands come back and he flinches, but they’re warm and follow when he tries to retreat. He thinks he recognises the voice, but he recognises the warm, smoky scent of cologne first.

Stark.

“Hey, Barnes, hey, you’re alright, breathe,” he’s saying.

James blinked his eyes open, unsure how long he’s had them closed. It’s darker, but not dark enough and he can still make out the man in front of him.

“That’s it,” Stark smiles, “Keep your eyes open, alright, just look at me, good,” he murmurs.

Everything aches. He feels so sick.

“You going to throw up?” someone else asks. Stark isn’t the only one is his space, but he’s all James can focus on.

“Yeah,” he grits out.

A moment later there’s a bucket in front of him.

He vomits, and it takes more energy than he really has to spare, but it gets rid of some of the nausea.

Tony can feel the eyes on the back of his head, he ignores it though, even when Rogers hovers over his shoulder and shoves water at Barnes, and Wilson crouches next to him with a bucket.

Barnes just hisses and flinches back from the cold of the bottle, too overwhelmed by sensation.

He accepts the room temperature water that Bruce gives though.

Barnes starts to fade in and out of lucidity.

One moment he’s talking, pushing Rogers away, “I’m fine, I’m fine, s’just a panic attack,” and the next he’s trembling and unresponsive to anyone’s voice, flinching painfully away from touch.

“It’s almost like he’s in withdrawal,” Bruce whispers to Tony when Rogers takes his place crouched down trying to coax Barnes out of the corner he backed himself into with the shock blanket up over his face, hiding from the already dimmed down light.

It doesn’t hit Tony as hard as the realization of the drop did. He’s rolling with the punches after the initial blow, he supposes.

“If you didn’t know any better?” Tony replies parroting their conversation from two months ago with a raised eyebrow.

Bruce frowns, considering, but he shakes away whatever thought he was chasing.

Likely the same one Tony’s having.

That Barnes is in Dom-withdrawal.

Over sensitive, over stimulated, anxious, sick, afraid. Susceptible to un-wanted commands from un-desired Doms.

It wouldn’t be the first time something like this has happened. With Barton, Wilson, and Bruce, not to mention recently tested Peter and Riri there’s been no shortage of sudden withdrawal symptoms. It was why they had the rule for trauma response partnerships.

Never something quite like this, though. Since usually the person experiencing withdrawal is experiencing symptoms that are congruent with their actual status.

“We should sedate him if he’s not calming down,” Wilson says, pulling Rogers away because he’s just _not helping_.

“Yes,” Tony agrees sarcastically, “Go stick a needle into the panicking, overstimulated super soldier with PTSD,” he rolls his eyes, “Don’t worry, his arm is only Vibranium”.

It was a last minute decision to board the Quinjet with Danvers team, with Rogers and the others, instead of with his own. A stupid decision. He still doesn’t know why he did it.

That doesn’t mean he can’t make something up, though.

“Why are you even here, man?” Wilson asks, frustrated.

Tony shrugs, “He’s using his safeword,” he says, faux casual, “I assumed none of you knew that,” he answers.

He has a perfectly good reason to know Barnes’s safeword, after all.

It may also be part of the truth.

Hearing him so lost and afraid, trying to find safety.

Maybe he feels responsible.

Tony doesn’t know.

“Oh, so now you care what happens to him?” Barton snorts.

_And lovely, they’re doing this now, then._

“What can I say? People can have a change of heart,” he says with a pointed side glance at Romanoff.

“Can we not do this here?” Bruce sighs, rubbing a hand over his face.

Rogers doesn’t listen, despite the risk, which is just so damn _typically_ stereotypical it makes Tony want to laugh.

“You know something,” he accuses, which, god damn, Tony hates how he’s still so easy for Steve to read.

Tony’s about to deny it, but Barnes decides that’s not an option for either of them.

“Ssst,” Barnes hisses out, “St-Stark,” he mumbled softly.

Rhodey has put the jet into autopilot, so there’s not a god damn one of them that doesn’t turn to look at Barnes, and then collectively back at Tony. He’s just lucky Maximoff is on the other jet with Vision.

“C’mere,” he whispers.

Tony freezes, even feeling so many sets of eyes on him. He doesn’t move or immediately have a joke, he doesn’t care how sad Barnes looks. He’s Tony Stark, he doesn’t just come when he’s called—

“Please,”

“Well, because you asked so nicely”.

Tony hazards to lift the blanket that Barnes has been using to block out the little light, but he goes for it.

Predictably though, Barnes does flinch back.

“If you’re experiencing light sensitivity, probably don’t request a pep talk from a walking night light,” Tony jokes.

Barnes doesn’t waste energy responding to the remark though.

“What’s wrong with me?” he whimpers with the _wrong_ kind of watery eyes.

Tony doesn’t like this kind of crying at all.

“There isn’t… there’s not an easy answer to that,” Tony admits quietly, hoping to limit who overhears them.

Rogers and Bruce are hovering, but Romanoff, Barton, and Wilson are pretending to give some privacy, kept up front with Rhodey who’s likely going to have a lot of questions after this.

“Please make it stop,” James whispers, rasps really, to Stark in a moment of coherency. “L-Like before,” he manages.

The pain and agony of simply existing keeps rising and falling over him and he’s sure he’s missing time, because he recognises the quinjet, but every time he manages to focus on the people around him, they’re somewhere different in the space.

James is distantly aware that he’s asking Stark to scene with him again, to help him sink into the soft, floaty space where things don’t hurt and colours are no longer sounds banging around in his head.

He’s not sure that Stark will do it.

It would out whatever is wrong with both of them

“What about Rogers? Why doesn’t he do it, okay?” Stark says gently.

Letting him down gently.

James shakes his head, but regrets it for the pain it causes him.

James thinks he loses time again when the pain flares up again, because he hears Starks voice filtering through like his ears are filled with cotton.

“—arnes, _Barnes_ ,” he’s saying.

James makes some sort of noise to show he’s listening.

“Tell me your safeword,” Stark commands, meeting his eyes.

“’s hydra,” James breathes out easily. Too easily. Viper had tried to command him, and he was so damn close to giving in. For what happened, he might as well have. He was useless against her.

Are they really going to do this? Does Stark want to? Or is he doing this only for James’s benefit? He doesn’t think this counts as moving towards being a better person. He fucked up so bad, but he saw _her_ and he just lost everything else.

Stark nods, almost encouragingly at him. Stark doesn’t look mad, or uncomfortable, but James can’t bring himself to look over his shoulder to see who else might to watching the interaction.

“Yeah,” Stark murmurs, and when James tries to duck his head, Stark reaches out and tips his head up. The contact doesn’t hurt the way it did before. “You used it a few minutes ago, so you need to tell me who it was meant for,” Stark instructs.

James can already feel things begin to fade away.

It’s not the same as how things just flew out of his grasp, getting lost to the panic and wrongness associated with Viper. James thinks that Stark just takes away all the things that James can’t handle, holds on to them for him. James still knows where everything is, knows it’s kept safe with Stark. Knows he’ll give it all back when James is ready.

There’s that strange sense of trust again.

“Viper,” James admits on a whisper.

“Good boy,” Stark praises, running his hand through James’s sweaty hair, “She’s gone now. You’re safe,” he tells him, and yes, James thinks. He _is_ safe. He’s starting to feel _good_.

Does he deserve to feel good after what happened, though? A voice whispers in the back of his head.

_Yes_ , he combats it in a way he never can when he’s not skirting the edge of sinking into whatever this is, _he deserves whatever Stark gives him_.

James shudders and nods, “Yeah,” he breathes, “safe”. 

Stark smiles at him, he’s crouched down and James’s level, but he stands now and smirks, “So why aren’t you kneeling?”.

“Sorry, Sir,” James gets out quickly, shifting forward onto his knees, palms up on his thighs like he just knows he’s supposed to.

“Good, you’re so good at that,” Stark praises and James floats lower and lower, sinks into that ocean of euphoria.

His heart is still racing, and it’s not as easy to be still this time, not yet anyway. He’s trying though, and Stark must see that, the way he did before, because he knows just how to calm James down.

“Tap me to safeword,” he says, like when he choked James on his fingers.

James responds with a shaky, eager, “Yes, sir,” and so Starks proceeds, heedless of their audience.

“Take a deep breath,” he says, and when James does, Stark covers his mouth and nose, cutting off his air supply and holding the breath for him.

Six seconds pass and Stark releases the hold.

Already the air he exhales is less shaky.

This isn’t Stark playing with him, entertaining himself, like he was two months ago. This time Stark knows exactly what he wants to see happen, and he knows just how to make it so. It’s quick and efficient. Brings James down fast and hard, controlling the very air that he breathes.

The world slows down, narrows, focuses on obeying, on Stark, on being good.

Instead of hearing things muffled and distorted through a cotton filled head, he feels like he’s underwater, completely held and surrounded by a gentle rolling undertow, he floats, gets pulled along by it.

It being Stark.

They repeat the process of Stark controlling each and every breath, James needing nothing but a simple “In” and “out” to prompt his breathing pattern under Stark’s hand.

James sinks lower still.

Everything fades away so gently. Stark controls everything now. The pain James feels, the intensity of light and colour, the sounds that make it into James’s perception.

It’s all up to Stark, and Stark alone.

There’s a look in Barnes’s eye, and it more than anything, more than the feeling of him struggling under Tony’s palm, is what makes Tony _soar_.

The high he felt before comes back so hard and fast its breathtaking.

So is Barnes sitting pretty on his knees for Tony, open and trusting, and needy.

Barnes needs this so much. Needs Tony so much.

Already the sweaty, pale complexion he had has been replaced by a light pink flush. His skittering gaze has glossed over with bliss and relaxation. Shoulders falling, tension rolls off him like water off a feather.

It’s exhilarating, to be responsible for all that.

For another person.

Tony is never trusted to take care of people. Of himself.

That comes with the world knowing you’re a Sub.

It’s a heady feeling now, to be the one in charge so completely.

That someone would let him control the very air they breathe.

Barnes doesn’t struggle after the third time, and that makes it even better. That Barnes recognizes the pattern Tony sets and makes himself match it even though his body wants to go into overdrive with short, hyperventilating breaths.

He fights his own anxiety because that’s what Tony wants him to do.

It doesn’t become sexual, and after a few minutes, Tony pulls his hand away and runs his hands through the mess of Barnes’s hair. Gently combing the tangles.

Barnes keeps breathing a steady four beats in, six hold, four beats out, just like Tony wants.

He does everything Tony wants.

It’s perfect, so of course it doesn’t last.

This time, when the world re-appears around him, it’s not Friday’s voice he hears.

It’s Rogers.

_Fucking fuck._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter wasn't great, but we've got a plot developing now!  
> Next up: just smut. It's only going to be smut.
> 
> Also, I made a tumblr! (notdoingsohot.tumblr.com) There's nothing on it yet, but baby steps!


	3. Chapter 3

James feels like _shit_. He’s groggy and his head is fuzzy. His body is heavy, limbs made of lead instead of bone and Vibranium. He’s aware enough to know it’s not Hydra though, despite the lack of memory. He can smell Steve’s cheap deodorant and hear the deafening sound of a heart monitor.

“Hey Buck,” Steve’s voice says over the beeping.

“Hey,” James replies, turning, no doubt looking confused as hell, “Wha’s goin’ on?” he asks, tongue heavy and slow.

Steve smiles tightly, “I’m sorry,” he says, “We had to sedate you,” he tells James.

Dread fills James.

“D-did I hurt someone?” he whispers, feeling his eyes burn, but he refuses to cry.

“No!” Steve rushes to assure him, only making James feel marginally better. “No,” he goes on, “You had a panic attack, or uh… a few?” he says almost as a question, “But uh, it was Stark, he—he was out of line, and there was an argument, and you were already upset, it was the only way to get you to calm down,” he says.

Slowly, James drug addled mind catches up.

Memories filter in the way they did before. None of them are good this time.

_“What the hell are you doing?”_

_“Helping”_

_“By treating him like a Sub?!”_

_“Why not? It worked”_

_“You know damn well why! Get away from him”_

He remembers being jerked back into the world of pain Stark had taken him out of. He remembers hearing voices get louder and louder. Yelling, aggressive, dangerous.

He thinks he took a swing at someone but was too uncoordinated to make contact. He lashed out though.

“ _Oh_ ,” he realizes.

It must have been easy to sedate him. Usually they can’t, not without someone, usually Steve, ending up with a few bruises.

He’s glad he didn’t hurt anyone this time though. He sighs, scrubs his hand over his face, ignoring the heart monitor on his finger.

First official Avengers mission, and he fucks the whole thing up. Needs to be sedated. Jesus, they should have left him in Cryo.

“Bucky, uh,” Steve starts nervously, “I just… you know you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, here, right?” he asks, “Not even—not even Stark can make you do things you aren’t comfortable with,” he says.

Oh god. James really messed up.

Embarrassment and shame fill him now. How could he have asked Stark to do that? He’s just made everything harder for both of them. How does he explain this away?

“Yeah, yeah I know,” James says shakily. He’s glad that Steve’s terrible at spotting lies, “Stark uh, he was just… what he did was helping, I think,” James tries, “He’s got it too, you know? PTSD, th-the panic attacks,” James says, “I guess he must know what he’s doing,” he attempts a smile.

“That wasn’t how you calm someone down during a panic attack, Buck,” Steve says seriously, “That’s how you put someone in—”

James cuts him off, “Yeah Steve,” he says in a rush, “I know,” he says, “But it works, so what does it matter, you know?” he wants out of the conversation now. “Am I allowed out of here?” he asks.

Steve winces, “I few more hours,” he says, “Your heartrate has been all over the place even with the sedative, so they just want to monitor you a bit longer,” he tells him.

James nods, “Awesome,” he says sarcastically.

Steve smiles, “Yeah, just try and get some sleep, alright?”

James nods, but he doesn’t sleep when Steve leaves.

Tony isn’t proud of what he does. Or rather when he does it.

He should have done this ages ago, when he first put Barnes in subspace two goddamn months ago. God, maybe even before that.

He was honestly terrified to do it.

To find out what was going on with Barnes.

The guy said it himself. _What is wrong with us?_ Whatever is wrong with Barnes, must be what’s wrong with Tony too.

He’s decided that’s not true, though.

Tony was born this way, baby.

Barnes was tortured, brainwashed, and chemically altered.

So, Tony runs another blood test while the guy is sleeping.

Tells himself what he finds has nothing to do with Tony, because they have very different physiologies anyways.

After the fight on the quinjet that was cut abruptly short by Barnes losing his goddamn mind worse than he was when Tony stepped in—and that was probably Tony’s fault too, if he really thinks about it—Tony’s a bit of a mess, and spoiling to rip Rogers a new asshole.

Funny, that for a moment he _liked_ having responsibility.

No wonder no one ever trusts him with _shit_.

Tony walks into Rogers’s wing of the compound. That’s what he’s taken to calling it, even though Rhodey and Danvers both stay there too. Rogers just takes up the most space.

It’s the middle of the day, and Rogers is stressed. Which means it’s easy to find them all gathered together not talking about what they really want to.

Tony moves through the space like he owns it, because he does. Makes himself a coffee in their kitchen, steals some berries he knows are Rhodey’s, and waits until the room is silent and he’s got all their attention.

“Oh, I solved it by the way,” Tony says over his shoulder. “What’s wrong with Barnes,” he elaborates after a significant pause.

“What a hero,” Wanda drawls, pretending not to be interested.

“You would know,” he says, “Or, wait… maybe you wouldn’t,” he lashes out with a maliciously teasing smile.

“Tony,” Bruce interrupts with a long-suffering sigh which Tony resents because he’s avoided them purely for Brucie’s benefit, he’s played nice for months now, though that’s not entirely true, they both know. “What did you find?” he asks.

“Oh, we’re interested?” Tony asks with a fake surprise. Bruce gives him a _look_ and Tony relents.

“Right, well it’s just that you fucked up,” he says, looking at Rogers, the man who was responsible for getting Barnes tested again in Wakanda, “Classic case of seeing what you want to see and turning a blind eye on the rest,” Tony says lightly, “You’re getting good at that, Cap,” he smirks.

“What are you talking about?” Rogers grits out, stance tense and aggressive, just like it always is with Tony. Ready to fight.

Rogers was always a breath away from fighting with Tony, wasn’t he? Even when things were good, he was still barely supressing aggression.

“I tested him again,” Tony tells them, “He’s a Submissive”.

He drops it like a bomb and waits. Almost ten seconds of held breath around the room.

“No, that’s not true. We already tested him again,” Bruce says with a question in his voice.

“No, you tested him to see if he had high DSD levels,” Tony points out to Bruce, “And you’re right, he does. Not because he’s a Dom though, it’s because he’s a super soldier,” Tony explains. “You tested him, saw average levels for an average Dom, and called it quits,” Tony directs that part to Rogers. “You saw what you wanted and ignored the rest. Including what he was telling you, I might add,” he says pointedly.

Tony was just as guilty though. He ignored it too, even after he saw Barnes in subspace. Ignored it because of the implications it had for himself.

“What are you really saying here?” Romanoff demands.

“I tested his SDD levels, which are—drum roll please,” he gives his own when no one’s interested in playing with him, “Three times higher than that of your average Submissive,” he says with a cheeky grin.

There.

Mystery solved.

He’s about to walk away, proud to leave them stewing in that, debating who’s going to break the news to Barnes when the devil appears behind him.

“Did you test yourself?” Barnes’s voice comes from the doorway.

It scares the shit out of Tony, and Bruce too, damn it.

He’s supposed to be in medical for another few hours.

“Test myself for what?”

“High DSD levels,” he mumbles.

Tony snorts, “Not a super soldier,” he reminds.

It takes a stern look and Barnes shifts out of Tony’s way. That’s not new behaviour he realises in that moment. Barnes always moves out of Tony’s way. Always walks behind him too. Tony chalked it up to not trusting him, but Barnes does that to Rogers and Romanoff too. Walks behind --trails after them.

Tony’s about to stand and leave, but Bruce stops him.

“Okay, so Barnes is a sub,” he agrees, “That doesn’t explain how _you_ got him into subspace,” he points out the thing Tony was really hoping to avoid.

It’s fine, Tony knows the answer. He’s pretty good at turning a blind eye too, after all.

“Three times the dopamine, three times as easy,” he breezes, shooting Barnes a wink. He gets a pouty frown in response. It’s stupidly cute.

Tony is halfway out the door when Bruce calls out again to stop him.

“Wait, just one more thing,” he says, innocently enough.

Tony sighs, but waits.

“What happened to your hand?” he says.

Tony doesn’t respond and leaves.

Temporary insensitivity to pain and temperature. Dissociative episodes. Feelings of unfulfillment.

The signs of sub-withdrawal.

Tony’s not interested.

James is pretty sure the drop hits harder this time. Because that’s what it is. Subdrop.

James is a submissive now.

He supposes he already knew that, but now it’s official.

The subdrop is definitely worse, but Bruce gives him the medication right away and he doesn’t have to suffer more than a day.

It’s like handing the doctors the key, really. Suddenly his therapist, his psychologist, his god damn physiotherapist, Bruce, Dr. Cho, the whole lot of them are suddenly revaluating him and re-running every test he’s gone through since he woke up in Wakanda.

Of course, he’s told he needs a trauma response Dom.

He hasn’t had a proper scene, one that wasn’t linked to abuse or impromptu and cut short dramatically.

Everyone expected him to push back, James thinks.

He doesn’t.

It’s not like James didn’t know he wasn’t a Dom, really. He’s relieved, if he’s honest. At least there’s no more confliction about feeling things that don’t make sense for a Dom.

So he’s game, really, to do this mandatory scene with some professional Dom so that he’s ready to handle the next time some Hydra half-wit decides to take advantage of him.

Yeah, he’s ready.

He is not ready.

He just puts on a lot of false bravado and Steve buys it. Fake it ‘till you make it. He’s pretty sure he heard Barton say that a few times. It’s probably awful advice.

He’s happy to no longer be considered a Dom, there’s that much that he understands. He’s not so sure what to do about the part where that makes him a Sub, though.

An easy Sub, according to Stark.

He’s not so much offended by that as he is _embarrassed_.

It’s a true statement, isn’t it? Subs don’t usually go into subspace for other Subs, no matter how… _refined_ said Sub is.

Stark was more than just refined though. He was… _unfairly attractive_ with a commanding presence and a history that did more to back up the confidence and swagger he went through life with.

Sub or not, Stark was the picture of control and poise, elegance and prowess.

Nothing about him felt like a Sub, but then what does James know about it? He’s only just found out that’s what he is.

Maybe James was just telling himself that so that he could pretend he wasn’t easy.

He’s scared. He can admit that to himself. When he did this with Stark, it was spur of the moment or necessity. This… this is different. He has too much time to get freaked out by all the possibilities.

What if the Dom is really Hydra? What if this will reset the programming, even though Princess Shuri had fixed him? What if they do something he doesn’t like and he hurts them? What if he’s just a bad Sub? It’s not like he can explain that he’s _new_ to this. A professional Dom must have _standards_. What if James can’t meet them?

There’s a lot to consider, and he considers it all.

Bruce keeps looking at Tony in the lab. They’re working on yet another sedative for the Hulk, but Bruce is distracted.

He keeps looking at the crook of Tony’s elbow like he might be able to steal a sample to test it while he’s not looking.

Tony eventually gives in, and the next day he digs through his medical records, pulls the proper paperwork, yellowed with age, and slaps it down on Bruce’s desk.

“Can we drop it now?”

Bruce frowns, doesn’t seem happy with the results, but agrees.

He keeps looking at Tony though.

That might just be in Tony’s head, if he’s being honest.

Tony might be looking at his own arm, wondering about testing himself.

He never does though.

It’s just that he can’t stop thinking about Barnes. About the way he makes Tony feel. He see’s Barnes and his heart picks up, like it’s banging against the arc reactor in his chest. He can’t get the image of Barnes on his knees, looking up at Tony like he _trusted_ him, out of his god damn head.

He’s the last person that Barnes should be looking at like that.

Not only is Tony notoriously irresponsible in every aspect of his life, he was insanely irresponsible with Barnes’s life too in the past.

This feeling he gets, thinking about Barnes, it’s a mix of guilt and admiration.

He feels guilty and underserving of Barnes’s submission, because despite what Steve says, Tony can’t just write off the death of his parents, the deaths of hundreds of other victims. He can’t. If it was that easy, Tony would have forgiven himself already. So, yeah. He feels guilty that he can take pleasure out of watching Barnes kneel for him while simultaneously still blaming him for the death of his mom.

On the other hand, he see’s Barnes and he _knows_ that the guy trying his best to right the wrongs, both those done to him, and that he has done himself. Tony can see it on his face when he’s staring up from his position at Tony’s feet. He’s so desperate, so eager to start making up for it.

It’s complicated.

It’s the kind of complicated that Tony has always been a sucker for, though.

He’s starting to really like the guy.

For James, the first Dom that shows up, he opens the door, and immediately slams in in her face again.

It’s not a great start, he can admit.

He’s appalled by his own behaviour, obviously and yanks the door back open to stammer an apology. She smiles tightly at him, calls him ‘lovey’ with an accent, tells him she can help with his nerves and he safewords before she’s got her coat off.

She’s too much like Peggy Carter.

The second one gives him a strange look when James doesn’t reply to his questions surrounding kinks with anything more than “Willing to try”, and James loses his nerve and asks him to leave before they finish the list.

Too embarrassed by his inexperience and unwilling to explain why that is.

The next one, James tells the guy he’s having second thoughts, and he replies to tell him that James _needs_ this, and James actually loses his temper a little, to which the guy calls him a brat. James kicks him out.

Actually, he grabs his arm and marches him out of the compound.

“Is this because I called you easy? Because you should know, you’ve got nothing to prove here,” Stark teases as he enters the common room he usually avoids unless he wants to be dramatic.

“How do you even know about this?” James asks, shooting a half-hearted glare. Stark came in mere minutes after James escorted his… _escort_ out of the building. It wasn’t a coincidence.

“It’s my compound,” he says easily, “I always know who’s in it,” he says.

“You’re the weirdest Sub I’ve ever met,” James can’t help saying, muffled by the way he’s got his head in his hands at the bar.

“And you’re the weirdest Dom I’ve ever met” he retorts easily.

“Not a Dom, though,” James says with an awkward smile.

Stark slides easily into James’s space, spins the swiveling barstool so James is facing him and occupies the space between James’s thighs in one smooth motion, “No?” he murmurs, “Then why are you suddenly acting like one?” he inquires, hand coming to grip his chin, tilt his head back so Stark can get a good long look at James’s very heart and soul.

That rush of heat that’s been missing with the last three Doms that James has tried to scene with rolls down his spine as he’s mesmerised by the golden swirl of Stark’s eyes which darken considerably when James licks his lips.

Stark must see it on his face, the way he’s already coming apart for him, because he smirks, proud.

It’s just _easier_ with Stark because Stark has a confidence like no other, but it’s more than that too. Stark just _knows_ everything James is going through, for the most part.

Knows James.

He doesn’t have to explain why he’s so inexperienced, or why he’s so desperate for this. Doesn’t have to explain say anything.

Stark knows that James is new to this, that he hasn’t had a proper scene, that he’s been hurt by Doms before. Stark knows that James wants to be good. Wants to serve a Dom, not be broken by one, because James is crippled by guilt and punishment hits too close to home.

Stark and James have a lot in common, he thinks. They just ended up on other ends of the spectrum when all was said and done.

“I just… don’t know what to expect with them,” James hazards a reply, shaky and breathless already.

“And you know what to expect with me?” he quirks a brow, already knowing that’s where this is leading. They’ll end up together again tonight. Maybe this time it won’t end so badly.

James smiles softly, “No. But no one else does either, so I don’t feel so bad,” he admits.

The grip on his chin is soft, gentle. Grounding in a way James desperately needs, especially when Stark smiles in a way that’s genuine and real, and James’s eyes get caught on his mouth.

There’s a sharpness to Starks lips, to his mouth, his words, his very soul. James thinks he could cut himself on a kiss from those lips and ask for another.

He bites his own lip thinking about it, and the grip tightens just a little.

Stark kisses him there in the common room.

It’s a bad idea, he knows, it just doesn’t feel like one.

It feels like a really good idea.

Tony shouldn’t kiss him. If they’re just doing a scene to help Barnes, and maybe Tony himself.

He kisses him though. So, Tony supposes they’re not just doing a scene.

He kisses him, feeling those soft pouty lips against his own, and he just keeps kissing him.

Kisses him with both hands tangled in his hair, pressing closer until Barnes’s legs are nearly wrapped around his waist.

He pulls away once, twice, three times before he can actually put a little bit of space between them. He feels out of breath, like he’s just run a mile uphill, but all he’s done is kiss Barnes.

“Wi-will you?” Barnes murmurs, eyes still closed, mouth still adorably pouty, now pink and glistening, waiting to be kissed again.

Tony doesn’t need a full sentence to know what he’s asking.

“Bedroom,” Tony agrees.

He leads the way like he’s a Dom, and for the time being, he feels like he is. Barnes—and if they’re doing this, and if they’re doing this for more than just necessity, than Tony supposes he should be calling him by his first name.

Whatever that is.

According to some of the others, he introduces himself as James these days, but he answers to Bucky too.

Tony isn’t fond of ‘Bucky’ outside of parody porn, so he’s opting to use James.

James trails after Tony an exact two steps behind like it’s standard protocol, and that does something to Tony’s head.

He also gets a sick satisfaction that he’s going to have very different feelings about later, when he catches a glimpse of Rogers leaving his own room before James closes the bedroom door.

Tony thought about taking James back to his own apartment, much bigger and more private, but there was something about being welcomed into James’s inner space. He just can’t shake the desire he has to take James this way in the home that Tony’s given him. Want’s to wrap them both up in that fact. So James can feel that ownership, that care. So that he can be comforted being surrounded only in that which his dom has given him.

The room hasn’t been changed at all from the empty, blank canvas that it was before Rogers came back with James and the others, and while that makes Tony frown, it’s not unexpected.

He’s momentarily caught off guard though, by this own thoughts.

He looks at James, who sinks swiftly to his knees under Tony’s gaze and he thinks that he wants to do terrible things to this man’s body, beautiful things to his mind, and expensive things to his tastes.

James is kneeling, but he leans forward just slightly. Not enough to be seen as disobedience, but more to get his desperation across, “Can I?” he asks, begs really, but for what, he doesn’t fully know. To take it farther, he supposes, “I just—I wanna be good, Sir,” he whispers to Tony

“You are good, you’re so good,” he is praised with heated words and a hand petting through his hair.

“I wanna be good for you,” James begs again, “You—you’re so good to me, I just—I wanna… please,” he whines, breathless. He doesn’t have the words for what he wants. Or if he does, he doesn’t have the confidence to say them.

Stark makes him feel so good, James wants to return the favour.

He looks up the line of Starks body, thinks maybe he should consider him by his first name now, and takes in the other man’s appearance.

His eyes are impossibly dark, breathing unsteady, slightly flushed. There’s a bulge in the front of his trousers, straining against the fabric.

He looks beautiful, and he’s looking down at James like he’s something special, and James wants to believe that expression.

Tony steps away, and James barely supresses a whine, but Tony still hears him, or see’s it on his face because he chuckles and hushes him. Tony sits down on the edge of James’s bed, spreads his legs wide and palms his growing erection.

“Uh, uh, uh,” he tisks, when James makes to get up.

He returns to his kneeling position with urgency, a little less graceful than a few moments ago.

“Safeword,” he says.

“Hydra,” James says in a rush.

“Good boy,” Tony purrs and it sends another wave of heat and warmth through James. “Now, strip. Don’t stand up,” he orders.

“Yessir,” James breathes.

It’s easy to pull his shirt up and off for Tony. He’s seen him shirtless before, in less enjoyable settings. It’s easy and it feels good to look up and see Tony biting his lip, raking his eyes over James’s torso with open appreciation and lust.

Getting out of his jeans without standing is more of a challenge, and judging by the way Tony licks his lips, that’s the point.

James has to focus on the task, and he’s distantly shocked that it seems to help him sink lower into subspace too.

The thought and care he needs to put into executing Tony’s orders sets his nerves on fire in a way that’s soothing and calming instead of overwhelming. Everything narrows down to Tony, and what Tony wants, and how all he needs to do is what he’s told.

He’s stuck in a feedback loop of pleasure. Following Tony’s orders makes him feel amazing, makes him sink lower, and the lower he sinks, the better the pleasure.

The harshness of reality falls away as James leans up on his knees, slips his jeans and underwear down under his ass, freeing his cock and he blushes at the way it springs up, rock hard already.

“So easy,” Tony coos at the sight of his arousal, his voice low and rough as he watches James struggle to balance and get his pants down over his knees.

When he finally manages to get his clothes off, he returns to kneeling and looks pleadingly at Tony. He doesn’t touch himself, despite how hard he is. He doesn’t want to. He hasn’t been told to, and nothing could feel as pleasurable as being good and doing what he’s told. So, James ignores his leaking cock and waits.

“Come here,” Tony commands, “Crawl,” he adds on a croak.

James is complying before he even registers the full request. His body just knows what to do. He doesn’t need to think about if he wants to obey or not. He needs this. He wants it.

He arches his back and looks up through his lashes as he makes his way across the floor.

Tony’s hands are shaking as he frees himself from his trousers. He doesn’t get naked, just pulls free his own hard cock and pumps it a few times, eyes glued to James’s form on the floor.

James knows what it is that he was begging for earlier when he comes to kneel between Tony’s legs.

He needs it, and he knows Tony will let him. Wants him to.

There’s so much uncertainty in James’s life, but here, with Tony, it all goes away. He can’t do anything wrong here, he can’t hurt anyone, he can’t second guess himself. He just has to do what Tony wants him to. There is nothing outside of that.

Tony orders him to do what Tony wants.

And he trusts that Tony won’t overwhelm him. Won’t ask for things he can’t do. He doesn’t know why, at least not right now in this soft, floating headspace, but it doesn’t matter.

He just trusts him.

“Open,” Tony tells him, gently pulling James’s jaw open.

He lets his mouth fall open, sticks his tongue out and when Tony’s thumb slides into his mouth he sucks gently.

“You’re so good,” Tony whispers, reverent, and James moans softly.

He wants this so bad. Loves it.

He’s never been good before. Never, not for anyone but Tony.

James looks so pretty like this, Tony thinks. So pretty, and so open, and so relaxed, and so, so _much_.

The sight of him is all encompassing all over again. Tony feels like he’s in a trance, and yet he feels and sees everything in front of him as a full body sensation, experience, whatever. He can’t keep track of all the ways this feels so right and perfect.

When he rests his cockhead on James’s tongue, it’s as if an inferno has opened up in the room, washing over him. It’s burning, electrifying.

James preens every time Tony praises him, or moans, or when his cock twitches. Tony doesn’t know if James realizes he’s smiling just a little.

It’s an adorable sight.

He’s so fucking eager to please Tony.

Tony is hopeless to do anything but let him.

Desire burns hot, and it’s a little distracting, and he wants more control than he has, and he knows James will give it to him.

Tony is gentle and smooth in his motions, even though he feels shaky with excitement. He moves James’s arms behind his back again, this time leading his hands to grip his elbows. The position accentuates his chest, leaves him with an arched back that looks just as sinful as it does vulnerable.

Tony feels more in control this way. He really wants to tie James up, he realizes.

Wants to tie him up, suspend him so he has to keep his balance. Make him work for it.

Tony likes that. Making James struggle to comply makes it all the more sweet, because he _will_ comply. James wants to comply so bad that Tony knows he’ll work hard to do it.

Tony wants to know how far James will let him take it.

He can’t find out right now, of course.

“Tap me to safeword,” Tony reminds.

James nods eagerly, “Yessir,” he exhales quickly.

He’s practically vibrating with excitement too, but Tony supposes it must feel different from what Tony’s feeling, because he’s sitting so goddamn still and Tony’s cock is not the only one of his body parts that’s twitching with restless need.

Tony’s received blowjobs before. A lot of them. From a lot of pretty people who have given a lot of blowjobs in their life.

He’s never felt anything as good as James’s hot, wet mouth wrapping around his cock.

James is eager, and he does infuriating things with his tongue, but he doesn’t give Tony a blowjob so much as he opens his mouth and takes Tony’s cock down his throat, letting Tony grip the back of his neck and control _everything_.

He sucks when Tony tells him to. He relaxes his throat and lets Tony fuck it when he’s told. He drools all over himself and doesn’t try and swallow but for when he’s gagging around Tony’s cockhead.

He’s perfect.

James’s face is the picture of sin. He looks up through wet, matted lashes, eyes glazed with pleasure, completely blissed out.

Tony tightens his fist in James’s hair as he approaches his own orgasm, which if he’s honest, is just part of the way he wants to exercise control over James, and has little to do with his own release. James’s eyes roll back in his head and he moans around Tony’s cock. He assumed that James would be against pain, but his grip has to be painful, it’s harsher than it was when Tony pulled his hair in the penthouse.

The way James looks though, Tony wonders if he’s even _capable_ of feeling pain right now.

When Tony is about to come, he pulls James off completely, but shoves his fingers back in his mouth so he can keep listening to those gagging sounds.

He comes hard, splashes of white against James’s chest and abs, over his cock, and then on the floor between his spread legs.

Which is exactly what he wanted.

He barely registers the pleasure of his orgasm. He’s still so caught up in James, and this electric feeling in his bones.

He pulls his fingers out of James’s mouth, smirking at the dazed look on his face and snaps his fingers to point at the mess of come, dripping down and pooling on the floor now.

“Lick,” he says.

And James _does_.

He nods eagerly, not bothering to attempt verbal confirmation, he probably couldn’t get the words out if he tried anyway.

James shifts back a little, he doesn’t release the hold that Tony had directed him to keep on his arms and slowly leans down. He’s guided by Tony’s hand gripping his hair, stopping him from falling face first into the hardwood.

He licks dutifully at the mess of come on the floor, tasting nothing but the sharp bitter and salty come that his Dom has given him. He cares about nothing else but this. About taking what he’s been given and loving it.

When there’s nothing left to lick but shiny expensive flooring, James pants roughly against the wood. He tries to look up, but Tony pressed his foot, clad in a new pair of expensive dress shoes, between James’s shoulder blades and presses his chest down into the floor.

“Ass up,” he commands all honey smooth and pleased.

James wiggles his knees back until he’s able to get his ass up and arch his spine.

“Good,” Tony purrs, and then his foot drags across James’s back softly and he presses down on the small of his back.

James lowers his hips, hisses and pants when his aching cock makes contact with the cool floorboards.

“Now come,” Tony growls, bending down to growl in James’s ear.

Tony keeps his foot on James’s back, and watches almost passively as he pants and drools on the floor for three of the sexiest minutes of his life. Tony watches James come obediently against the cold, hard floor and his own stomach, still restraining himself for Tony’s pleasure.

He whines and moans, and whimpers, and when he comes, it’s with a loud, broken off version of Tony’s _name_.

He’s never heard the word ‘Tony’ in James’s mouth before.

This is the very first time.

He thinks he’ll never hear his name spoken quite like that ever again, but hopes to god he’s wrong about it.

Because _fuck_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: aftercare!
> 
> In case anyone wants to know, my line of thinking with the biological aspect of being a dom or sub in this fictional universe, has to do with what kind of dopamine high your body likes. So, a dom is better suited with the brain chemistry that leads to stimulant highs like cocaine and amphetamines (which effect dopamine transporters), where a sub has the brain chemistry more adapted to a depressant high like pot or alcohol (which increase dopamine production) which is why subs feel mellowed out, and doms feel hyper-focused.   
> It's also why when Bucky was going through subdrop he took stimulant meds, and Tony smoked a joint. Which doesn't work in real life. Don't mix stimulants and depressants, you'll just vomit. This is just hand-wavey fictional science.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!
> 
> I have tumblr: notdoingsohot.tumblr.com so come talk at me or something


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was done and was just sitting in my docs completely forgotten about. I found it and the plot growing dust so here you go.

James is barely conscious once Tony has gotten him up on the bed, hardly stirring as Tony cleans him up. Tony lets him sleep, and he doesn’t think about leaving.

Why doesn’t he think about leaving? Besides the obvious fact that aftercare is important.

He doesn’t think about that either. Just rides the high this has given him and doesn’t analyse why it is he’s on it to begin with.

Instead he lies next to the former Winter Soldier, strokes his fingers through his hair.

Tony is still completely dressed, but he kicked his shoes off to climb into the bed with James. He even gets under the sheets, completely ruining his suit to be close to the naked man.

Tony’s been keeping tabs on James. Of course, he has. He’s been keeping tabs on James and had the stupid impulsive decision to proposition the guy for a scene because… because Tony wanted it so bad. He thinks he’s going to keep wanting it too, and that’s a terrifying.

Even more terrifying, was making the suggestion and knowing that James was going to agree.

The man looked beautiful, and it was a struggle even for Tony’s genius brain to understand how they’d ended up here. Why it was Tony that James chose to share this with.

His submission.

After everything that had happened to him, it was Tony he felt safe with? It was Tony he trusted with this?

Clearly yes.

And Tony was too fucked up with dopamine to really question that right now, not when he could still reach out and trace patterns on heated skin over hard muscle.

Tony doesn’t mean to fall asleep. He’s not exactly tired, but when James turns, rolls over and tucks himself into the crook of Tony’s arm, face against his shoulder so close his nose brushes Tony’s jaw with a little huff of breath and his metal arm comes across Tony’s chest, his leg tossed over his hips and starts snoring ever so softly…. Tony doesn’t know what else you’re _supposed_ to do.

James wakes up.

It’s only the second time in his memory that he’s experienced such a sensation, and it’s already becoming familiar due to the warm scent of Tony’s cologne.

He’s pressed up against the other man, he can tell this from the heat. He’s tucked under the covers too, which he’s grateful for considering their opposite states of dress. He feels warm and floaty and safe though. Can feel and arm around his back, fingers tracing patterns against his naked flesh beneath the blanket.

Tony overwhelms his senses and it’s a nice feeling. Tony is a nice feeling.

He hums and rolls his head up to look at the other man, slightly embarrassed by the wet spot left by his parted mouth.

“Sorry,” he says when Tony smiles softly at him.

Tony is often a sharp-edged man. In this moment he seems infinitely softer. Filed down and harmless. He wonders if he too, appears much less lethal than they both know him to be.

“Also for falling asleep,” he adds because this must have been boring for Tony. James falling asleep so fast and so deeply.

“I don’t mind,” Tony says, and his voice is rough with sleep too, which would explain the softness in his eyes, if James had to guess, “How do you feel?” he asks.

James hums again and lays back down, burrowing his face in Tony’s collar, “Very good,” he says, muffled against Tony’s shirt.

He hears soft laughter and his own mouth ticks up in a rare smile.

“That’s good, I’ve never had any complaints before, but you know, super-soldier and all. Higher standards,” his voice is gentle and teasing in a way James is rarely privy too. It’s usually reserved for people that… well, aren’t James. He can still say he’s heard the tone more frequently than Steve has these last few months though.

“You’ve definitely set my standards a lot higher than they were,” James mumbles, “You’ve done this before?” he asks, because it’s pretty clear he has.

There’s a long pause and then, “Nope”.

James jerks his head up, “Really?” he asks disbelieving.

Tony hums his confirmation.

“Well, you’re really good at it,” James says and settles back down.

Tony snorts, still tracing patterns against James’s skin, “No offense,” he says, “but I don’t know that you’re the best judge, considering the kind of experience you have,” he says.

It feels harmless in this moment to bring it up. He thinks he’d bristle at the mention were it at any other time, were it any other Dom.

Tony knows though. Knows what James went through, in broad strokes, and in small specific details too. No one will ever understand everything that James went through, he knows. Least of all himself. That’s okay though. He doesn’t need to understand it all. Doesn’t need anyone to look at him and see all that’s been done to him. All that he’s done because of it.

Still, James has an argument to make, “You forget I was also a Dom,” he murmurs.

He was never a Dom like Tony though, and maybe that should make him feel bad about himself, considering Tony is not a Dom at all, and he’s still somehow better at it than James was, but he’s also better than most other Doms that James has met. It’s not so much a point against James’s ego as it is a point gained to Tony’s.

“That was what? 1942?” Tony huffs, “Different era. Less debauchery,” he insists.

James laughs openly at that.

Has he ever laughed before?

Tony seems caught by it, but even that expression doesn’t stop him from giggling.

He still feels incredible from the scene, and he’s warm in Tony’s arms, still held even as he’s shifted to rest his chin on his folded hands over Tony’s chest.

He’s mindful of the reactor even though he can’t see it’s glow through the layers of fabric.

He’s only ever known Tony to have it, but Steve swears it wasn’t there when they fought him in Siberia. He believes him only because he knows Steve never wanted to kill Tony and would never have let James try and tear it out if it would have meant killing someone. Steve knows he doesn’t do that anymore.

That thought is a little sobering, though it doesn’t wrench his insides as much as it usually would.

“Sorry, but that’s bullshit,” he says in response to Tony, “and since when are you so modest?” he adds.

Tony smirks at him, that typical self-confident smile, “Well what can I say?” he says, “I’m a quick study? I’m familiar in the field?”.

“Does that mean you’ve done this the uh…” he tilts his head side to side, “the other way around?” he asks.

Tony’s smile is a little less warm, and he looks as if to be recalling something, “I’ve tried,” he says.

“I’m sorry,” James says, because he knows what it’s like to be forced into submission. To need something he doesn’t want to need.

“Oh, it wasn’t all bad,” Tony says to him, “I learned a lot,” he winks.

James can’t help smiling again, sighing softly.

He feels incredible like this.

He doesn’t deserve it though, and that’s a jarring thought.

“Thank you for doing this,” he says softly. This is probably where it ends, right? When James starts crashing.

Tony raises an eyebrow at him, as if sensing the turn his thoughts have taken.

“I’m not exactly a service Dom here,” he says unimpressed.

Which makes James blush and give a small, rueful smile. There is a point to be made he supposes. Tony came to him, not the other way around.

Tony’s hand comes up to James’s face, and everything feels so gentle here like this. So soft and warm and safe in the arms of the man he orphaned. James turns his face into the contact, pressing for more.

Tony gives it to him easily.

“You did really well,” Tony says softly. He’s going out on a limb here. He’s not so well versed in the aftercare process, and while he’s pretty sure he isn’t fucking it up too bad yet, he’s still a little worried.

James, as well adjusted as he seems to be, must have a mine field of trauma in his head. There’s no telling what he needs right now, and of course Tony’s a shitty person and didn’t ask ahead of time.

But James preens.

Ducks his head shyly, and kicks his feet gentle under the covers with nervous excitement.

Oh, Tony thinks. He can do _that_.

He flips them over gently, James going willingly, lets Tony occupy the space between his naked thighs, shivers against the slide of fabric.

He kisses him again because it feels natural.

“You were so good for me,” he says against James’s lips.

Too many times Tony thinks James has been brought out of this state too roughly, too hard. Tony wants to keep him here, feeling good, for as long as James needs to combat the horrors in his mind.

It gives Tony such a sense of purpose it’s grounding, humbling, even though he feels like he’s flying and on top of the world.

“You’re such a good sub,” Tony murmurs into the hollow of James’s throat.

He feels his adams apple bob as James swallows audibly.

“Yeah,” Tony smiles, leaving kisses across collarbones and shoulders. The join of his neck, “You’re a good boy, aren’t you, James?” he whispers against warm skin.

James makes a small keening noise and tilts his head silently begging for more, which Tony gives readily.

“I liked making you work for it,” Tony goes on with gentle kisses, “I liked seeing you struggle out of those jeans,” he says.

James hums, “I—I liked that too, made me… floaty,” he sighs.

Grinning, Tony asks, “You like being floaty?”.

He feels James nod, “Yeah,” he breathes, “It’s good, you—you’re good at it,” he says.

“I like when you’re floating,” Tony murmurs, “Like watching your brain slow down, like watching you relax, all soft and sweet for me,” he says honestly, “So precious,” he whispers, “Thank you for this,” he says.

“Fuck, Tony,” James whines, “Thank you,” he sighs.

Tony hums, “I like this mutualistic thing we have going on,” he says on a chuckle.

“Me too,” James agrees, “Let’s keep doing it,” he suggests.

“You’ve gotta come back out of subspace eventually,” Tony points out.

“No,” James moans.

“Not yet,” Tony soothes.

“I-I’m further down then I was a min’te ago,” James breathes.

“I know,” Tony replies.

“’s nice,” he sighs again.

Tony hums, smirking into James’s skin where he continues to lavish kisses.

James isn’t as floaty as he’d been when Tony was ordering him to lick the floor or choke on his cock, but it’s a near thing. He doesn’t think he’s ever been in subspace this long before, never felt the layers of it in reverse. Never felt himself bobbing between levels of coherency. It’s nice.

It’s not crushing reality and spiking anxiety and shame that brings him out of it, rather it’s a few dozing naps and kisses, Tony brushing his hair with a comb, gentle with the tangles, warm hands digging into the knotted muscles of his shoulder—the pain nothing but the sweetest agony.

The sun is peaking up over the trees when James is finally fully out of subspace and still feeling incredibly good.

Tony stays another few hours, napping, talking, and touching James the whole time. He never really stops. He never realized how much he craved touch until Tony gave it so willingly.

When Tony stands and stretches, making to the bathroom, James realises he spent the entire night in a rumbled suit.

“You could have borrowed something,” he calls.

“I was busy,” Tony retorts.

James takes a moment to find some clothes himself, as he’s still naked. It’s not like Tony hasn’t seen him naked, but out of context of sex, he worries about the scars.

“You better not go easy on me when we spar tomorrow,” Tony says when he returns. This is the part where they say goodbye, but it doesn’t feel tense between them.

James still feels good, happy, well rested. There’s no sinking feeling when Tony picks up his suit jacket and slips into his shoes.

Smiling into the pillow, James huffs, “I would never,” he says.

Smiling, Tony manages to get out of Rogers’s wing without seeing the blonde, or any of the others for that matter.

All but Rhodey.

“Okay fine, but walk with me,” Tony says to the man without prompting.

Rhodey does follow with a long suffering eye roll, but he’s frowning, and Rhodey doesn’t look to have just _stumbled_ upon Tony on his morning walk of shame like all those times at MIT.

“It’s a mission,” he says, “But that doesn’t get you out of an explanation,” he adds, and then Friday is sending Tony the details, and Tony’s brain is going a mile a minute trying to figure out what they hell all this means. Hoping to come to a better, a less terrible conclusion.

“They’re trafficking kids,” Tony sighs.

Rhodey nods sadly. “Avengers meeting, thirty minutes,” he says and gives Tony’s shoulder a comforting squeeze.

It’s enough time to get back to his own rooms and clean himself up, and he’s unbelievably grateful for the scene from last night, as the steady calm it gave him is the only thing keeping Tony from flying apart after reading the report.

He still grinds his teeth when Natasha says, “What’s so important that we need the Avengers investigating human trafficking? This is a little below our pay grade don’t you think?”.

Tony doesn’t bite back at her. It’s the first time in his life he’s been able to bite his fucking tongue and breathe through the anger.

That is not the case for the eight-teen year old girl who showed up at the compound that morning though.

“What’s so important? You’re kidding me right?! You cold hearted _bitch_!” She yells, screams really.

Tony cannot however, stifle the bubble of laughter in his chest watching the Black Widows face after being called a bitch by a teenage submissive.

Kate Bishop is a bit of a wreck though she barely shows anything besides rage. It’s an obvious cover for her fear and anxiety.

He doesn’t know why, but he reaches out and squeezes her shoulder in comfort, “It’s alright, we’re going to find your dom,” he says.

She relaxes but still crosses her arms, pouting, “She’s not my dom,” she mutters.

“Right, and you’re not the new vigilante Hawkeye, right? Glad we covered that, let’s continue,” he motions for Carol to continue talking.

“Human trafficking isn’t usually Avengers business, yes, but when pimps start up side businesses kidnapping enhanced and super-powered kids, I think it just might be,” she says pointedly.

James feels vaguely sick going over the report. He took his seat next to Tony, though it put him closer to the limelight than he’s used to. He just needs the mans steady presence. Tony looks to have been rather busy in the hour since he left James’s room, going over the data and meeting with the kid who brought it all to their attention.

They haven’t discussed what they want to be known about whatever it is that they have going on, nor have they discussed what it is that they have. Tony still smiled warmly at James when he entered the room, giving him his full attention, looking at him with a soft expression and didn’t seem to notice that he had been mid-sentence with Danvers when he did so.

James took that to mean it was okay to want to be close even while surrounded by what Tony has deemed his enemy. James is pretty sure he’s not wrong. About sitting next to Tony, or the enemies part.

Danvers asks Bishop to recount what she had told them earlier, in case anyone skipped the reading like Romanoff seems to have.

While Bucky listens intently, stomach turning, Tony works quickly at something on his tablet, fingers flying over the shimmering lights. It gives James something to look at that isn’t the girls troubled expression.

“Amy and I were looking into this guy, Paul Cropper, he’s a pimp in our neighbourhood, just another low life taking in and then manipulating subs that are already hard up, you know?” she says, anger replaced with a deep sadness. James assumes that Amy is America Chavez, who’s profile stares back at Bucky on his own tablet.

“But then we saw him take this girl that’s too young to even be tested!” she says motioning at nothing, simply talking with her hands to vent aggression. “And they drugged her, knocked her out which he’s never done before. We followed him to this club, and they brought her in, but they never came out with her and we watched the place for _days_ ,” she stresses, as if trying to prove she has done everything right. “Then again, more of Croppers men took another woman, older, way older than any of the subs he has working for him, and she fought back before they drugged her. She’s enhanced. Had powers. Then… Then they took Amy and she’s—she’s not uh, not human so…” she trails off.

Not human was putting it lightly. America Chavez was an alien, according to the report in James’s hands.

“Do we know how he’s targeting them? Are they all vigilantes like Chavez?” van Dyne asks.

Bishop shakes her head, but Tony speaks up instead.

“The same way I just IDed them all,” he says, projecting the names and faces of the two other victims on the screens around the room.

Daisy Johnson and Kamala Khan.

“SHIELD data dump,” he says, looking to Romanoff and holding her eye. “SHIELD was keeping tabs on them for years. Chavez too, ever since she landed here. When SHIELD’s files were leaked, so were the names and _specifications_ of every possible super-human Fury had investigated prior to the Avengers forming,” he says, a bitter tone.

An accusing tone.

Bishop latches on to it, too.

“This is your fault?” she demands, looking between Steve and Romanoff.

It is, James thinks. He won’t say it out loud of course, but he does believe it. The situation could have been handled with delicacy and precision, if only they were more competent with technology. Even the Winter Soldier, frozen on and off for nearly a century, could have worked the system better than dumping thousands of terabytes of confidential intelligence files indiscriminately on the internet.

“Pointing blame won’t help your friend right now,” Strange says, but the unspoken ‘but yes, it is’ hangs in the air and the young girls hands clench into fists.

“We need inside that club,” Danvers sighs, ignoring the growing tensions as nothing more than an inconvenience as she so often does.

She is so far removed from everything that went down between the Avengers, it’s rather comforting.

Tony, the genius, is already looking up the place, blueprints, yelp reviews, peoples Instagram photos.

“We need the kiddos to leave the room,” he says, and obediently Peter and Riri hang their heads. They always respond well to Tony, and despite what he says now, he is often careful not to treat them like they are too young. In this case, they really are. The club is a twenty-one plus kind of place, the kind of sketchy joint that you don’t head to when you’re just young and fun.

“You too, Ms. Hawkeye. Temptation and all that. Don’t want you trying to worm your way inside. You’ll join Barton or Ja—Barnes covering the exits, so don’t give me that look,” he says without looking to see her scowl. Peter smiles at Bishop, ushers her outside the room.

Seamlessly, he displays the blueprints, “There’s three sections, so we’ll need someone in each. The bar, the dancefloor, and the loft. I suggest we use subs, more likely to catch the eye of one of Croppers men,” he says.

“No. We can’t send submissives in like bait,” Steve says, crossing his arms.

“None of us are the right age demographic either, if Cropper’s main business is sex trade, he’s only interested in young subs that can be groomed. We might as well go as pairs, try and buddy up to someone, Dom or sub,” Sam points out.

It’s a sickening thought, but at least they’ll be able to dismantle it in the end. Poverty seems far more brutal than James remembers it being.

“Right, you’ll go with me,” Danvers says to Sam, who nods with barely concealed excitement.

Finally, they were going on real missions now. Not that this counted as normal Avengers work. Still, this made the second mission Tony and Danvers didn’t stonewall Rogers.

“We should have a more believable couple for the loft,” Tony points out.

Fidgeting, James speaks up, “Uh, I could go with you then,” he mumbles, and the only reason Tony hears it is because James is sitting so close.

Tony tried to hide how much he likes that idea, though he’s not sure he succeeds at all. Not with how he reaches out and tucks a piece of hair away from James’s face so he can see his pretty pink blush.

“Stark is too high profile for this,” Steve speaks up, probably having heard the exchange with his enhanced hearing, though James can’t imagine why it calls for such vehemence. “I don’t think he should be on this mission”.

“We are _all_ too high profile, Rogers,” Tony drawls, “We’ll have to wear photostatic veils to keep cover,” he says.

“I call dibs on the roof,” Barton declares, “I want to see what Hawkeye junior is all about,” he grins.

Biting his lip, Bucky squares his shoulders, “Then I call dibs on Tony,” he says to the room.

“I second that,” Tony immediately backs him up, letting him relax a little.

“You can’t…” Steve cuts in, nearly rising in his chair, “You two can’t go _together_ ,” he says.

James is about to speak up for himself, but Tony beats him to it, lightening fast with a retort.

“Well we are together, so I don’t see why we shouldn’t go together,” he leers.

The proclamation makes James’s breath catch in his throat.

“You’re both submissive, Tony. You can’t,” Steve insists.

“We did, though,” James puts in.

“Buck,” Steve says plaintively, “He’s not a dom, it’s doesn’t work that way,” he says, tone condescending and slow like he’s talking to a child.

Danvers frowns heavily, “I’m sorry Tony, but we don’t have enough submissives for you two to go together. Not if we want a second sniper on the roof,” and her tone really is apologetic, damn near painfully when she see’s Steve relax into his chair.

“Bucky and I are close,” Steve says, “We can take the loft,” he offers, overly helpful. Eager to be involved in the planning, unused to sitting on the sidelines and following directions anymore.

James doesn’t love the idea, not even a bit, but he see’s Steve’s point. Though he thinks Rhodes and Tony would have been just as convincing. Maybe there is concern about Tony’s ability to be convincing as a _sub_ , though.

James really doesn’t love that part of the idea. Tony pretending to be submissive, subservient, passive, docile. It was never in the nature of Tony Stark, that James was sure of.

But like Steve and Sam, and likely Natasha and Clint too, Bucky was eager to get into the field and _do_ something. His excitement and anxiety mixed to allow him not to think too hard about it, not until they got to the club.

It wasn’t a normal club.

Though James knew that. Sex trafficking doesn’t use anything shy of the shadiest establishments as fronts.

James wished there had been time for him and Tony to talk or something before this, but as it was, Tony’s life had become a whirlwind of paperwork and planning and phone calls since the Bishop girl showed up. James didn’t understand the half of what Tony did for the Avengers. Steve understood even less.

He wished they could have spoken, because as it was, seeing Tony with a face that was not actually Tony’s was jarring as hell.

Not nearly as jarring as getting to the club _Red Riches_ which while living up to the red in lighting and décor, spoke nothing of riches. It was dirty and sticky, and oh so very loud.

That wasn’t what Bucky found jarring though.

It was Tony, walking an obedient two steps behind Rhodes.

He wasn’t great at it. He was closer to a step and a half and encroaching on Rhodes’s space whenever possible. He was silent, wasn’t docile, wasn’t bratty either. Still, he looked the part enough, James supposed.

He was likely the only one who noticed the way Tony tried to take more space than he was supposed to.

James was at the railing of the loft, eyes trained on his… well, that was one of the things he would have liked to talk to Tony about today. What were they? Together, certaintly. Tony had said so himself. Together as only a dom and a sub could be? Or were they simply boyfriends?

In a place like this, James didn’t think too much on the latter. People here had one thing on their minds. The few sub pairs in attendance were perched in the laps of doms or withering their sweat slicked bodies against each other under a watchful eye of masters.

James was not unaffected by the atmosphere.

He tried not to let his mind wander too much, keenly aware that many of the subs were coerced, drugged, and manipulated into their jobs. Keenly aware of Tony below them at the bar pretending to be something James knew he was not—allowing himself to be… disrespected like this. Keenly aware of Steve’s hand on his lower back in a more than friendly gesture.

Still, James could clock the unknowing patrons from those who _worked_ the club.

The dom and sub pairs that were simply that, simply out and enjoying a space where they could be more themselves than out on the streets… were eye catching.

Places like this? Where Subs wore collars and little else, where their doms lead them through crowds of appreciative gazes on gleaming metal leashes, where bruises and marks of possession were on open display… these places used to be _expensive_ when he was growing up.

So he’s never been to one.

Nor had Steve, if the way his eyes skittered around the room was any indication.

Back in their day, Subs wore collars all the time. Now, it wasn’t a common act. Most of the subs that James had observed wore delicate chains, thin metal bands, or even just simple necklaces to show their commitment with a dom. Clint wore nothing but a tag chain with a tiny decorative padlock on it to show he belonged to Natasha. He could lift it off over his head is he wanted.

Here, the subs wore real collars. An assortment of them, varying in the level of control they gave the Dom who held the key. Not every sub wore one, of course.

James was aware of the way those subs attracted attention, the way doms flocked, circling dancing subs like prey.

That wasn’t even the most primitive thing that James was privy to here.

Sex.

Obviously he knew what he was getting into. It’s that kind of club.

He still wasn’t sure he was ready to see a naked sub suspended in the most intricate form of bondage James had ever seen in his life.

She looked entangled at first, a mess of sandy rope wrapped and looped around her body, her expression pinched with the strain of it. Upon further inspection though, that was not what was happening. The ropes were in no way messy, but instead incredibly precise, holding the women, cradling her, holding her. The only thing keeping her from swinging from the anchor the of the ropes origin was her foot, leg stretched out, toes barely brushing the ground. The cause of the strain.

“What is that called?” James accidentally said out loud, completely forgetting himself.

Steve followed his line of sight easily, fingers twitching against James’s back.

“Bondage, Bucky. You know that,” he said, tone curious.

“It’s different, why’s her foot like that?”

Steve just shrugged.

“We’re working, Buck,” Steve reminded, even as he moved even closer to James. They generated too much heat between them for this, James thought. Two super-soldiers plastered against the railing of an overcrowded sex club. Not ideal.

He had the faces of all Croppers men memorized. Three were in attendance, but they were _busy._

Identifying them made it easier to notice which subs were working for Cropper. They floated between patrons and these men frequently. The subs weren’t allowed to hang on to the money they made for more then thirty minutes, it seemed.

The Subs were all pretty, young, and thin in skimpy clothes as they masqueraded as wait staff selling drinks to lone doms, letting sleezy hands touch and grope them for extra tips they wouldn’t get to keep. It was all feigned interest and bland smiles. Dull eyes that had nothing to do with subspace.

James was familiar with the look. He’d seen it in the mirror enough.

There weren’t any bruises on these subs. Instead, their skin was marble perfect. Make-up to cover the wrong kinds of marks.

“How much for a piece of that ass, huh, honey?”

A high giggle, but the girl wasn’t looking at the man propositioning her, instead she looked to one of Croppers men, received a nod, and then turned that bland smile on again, “How about two hundred and you can have me anyway you want, sir,” she purred.

A little ways away, a similar conversation took place, “I should get a discount, don’t you think?” another man asked a male sub, slapping his ass.

“On the drinks? Or were you looking for a little more?” the sub asked, eyes tracking down another of Croppers men.

“You offering?”

“It’ll cost a little more than a few drinks,” the sub said, after getting a nod.

“Cost me? I gave you your fucking tips. Don’t get greedy now,” the dom sneered, tone a little less light.

“Well, I am at work,” the sub tried.

“Work,” the dom scoffed, “You’re eye candy. Part of the entertainment,” he said, gripping the sub’s hips possessively, “Come on,” he said, steering the sub away, “I’ll show you a good time,” and he didn’t give much choice.

The sub looked to Croppers man who remained impassive to the situation. James saw the way the sub gave in, let himself be forced outside with the understanding that he was on his own. No one was going to help him. This was part of his job.

Suddenly, James couldn’t be passive anymore. He slipped out of Steve’s grip, moved quick and efficient, not drawing the eye of anyone but his companions. Steve’s hissing over the comm had the rest of the team on him. Still, he moved, avoiding Natasha as she tried to intercept him. Got outside, let his super-hearing lead him to the alley out back.

“Please, come on—I have to get paid,” the sub pleaded.

“I already paid for this,” the dom hissed, the sound of a loud slap directly following, “Don’t tell me you don’t want it, leading me on like that”.

Tony heard Steve over the comm, but it was easy to track James’s movements through the crowd anyway. He was alone after all. He made ripples in the crowd even as he moved like a wraith.

Tony also had Friday on his side, and it took no time to figure out where James was going.

Tony stopped him just as he was about to turn into the alleyway.

James turned pleading eyes on him, and Tony would never have said no.

He gave a curt nod, and the Winter Soldier slunk into the alley.

He made barely a sound taking the assailant out, and Tony followed close behind.

To say the sub looked terrified of James, six feet tall and dropping the dom to the ground with nothing but a well placed blow to the back of his head with his concealed metal hand, would be an understatement.

Tony also didn’t need to see James’s face disguised or not to know he looked incredibly angry. Tony slid up behind him, slipping a hand onto the back of James’s neck, squeezing softly.

“You’re fine,” he soothed, maybe to both of them.

The sub made a horrible, scared noise, and James tensed at the sound.

“Here,” Tony said, kicking the unconscious dom over to fish out his wallet. He took what was left in it for cash and shoved it at the sub.

He steered James out of the alley then, hand on his back—hoping to get further from the club before one of Croppers men came looking for the sub.

It was almost funny how even disguised, a pissed off Captain America looked just the same.

“Fuck,” Tony and James hissed in unison.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey so sorry I forgot about this?
> 
> Anyway, I'm about the wrap up my other fic When I'm Without You (brock rumlow x bucky barnes) and then I'm going to focus either on this fic OR on the Stuckony non-sexual ageplay fic I mentioned in the notes of Thank You and I'm taking votes on tumblr (or here if that's not your jam) on what people are more interested in! 
> 
> [Here's my tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/notdoingsohot) my asks are open if you have a preference!
> 
> Also let me know if the POV is getting hard to follow and I'll put breaks in to note the switch.


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